The Queegert grunted at her. “Authorization code,” he stated.
Arlene frowned. “I, er . . . don’t have one.”
“No transport with no authorization.”
“Well, I clearly have authorization. I just don’t have one of your codes.” She paused, making sure he was keeping up. “I don’t suppose you want to be the person who prevented Master Gilmurry from keeping to his scheduled appointments, do you?”
She watched his eyes flicker back and forth as he processed the information. A moment later, he seemed to have made his mind up. He gestured roughly with the barrel of his gun. “Inside,” he said gruffly.
Arlene nodded her thanks with dignity more than friendliness and stepped onto the shuttle that was quickly being loaded.
“Five minutes!” someone shouted. The activity in the immediate vicinity increased until the engines roared to life and the doors were closed.
She glanced around the shuttle. It was standing room only. Nothing to sit on. Just supporting poles and hand rails. The place was filthy, too. Not a place for passengers really, though there were two Queegerts on board. Both wore dark uniforms, and the expressions characteristic of the hopeless masses.
She recalled the old Earth quotation by some Thoreau guy, “Living lives of quiet desperation.”
That felt fitting.
The ship flared into motion, rocking everyone and everything inside the holding area. Arlene grabbed for the nearest rail and held on for dear life as they ploughed upwards through the atmosphere.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Aboard the Scamp Princess, Ferrai Quadrant nearing Phoenix-Delta Outpost
Giles tapped his fingers nervously on the console as Scamp directed the ship closer to the station. “His instructions say Dock 324, and if we hail him on the same channel, he’ll have someone meet us,” he explained for the third time in as many minutes.
Scamp ignored the repeated information. “Finding 324 is going to be tricky. They haven’t got any beacons running.”
Giles’s brow wrinkled, then flattened. “I suspect there’s a reason for that,” he mulled slowly. “Can you get a visual?”
“Affirmative. But it’s like operating in the dark ages.”
Giles stifled a chuckle. “What do you know about the dark ages?”
“Only what I can infer about what life must’ve been like before you guys had EIs.”
“Hang on . . .” Giles scoffed playfully, “you’re saying the dark ages were pre-EIs?”
“Exactly. What would you call the dark ages?” Ze asked earnestly.
Giles tried to approach the question logically while distracted by how amused he was. “Well, each civilization has multiple . . . and it depends on the era you’re looking at. Normally when you have a renaissance, by default, the era preceding is often known as a dark age.”
“You’re suggesting that your naming convention is relative as opposed to absolute?”
Shit, these EIs could get pretty smart, pretty damn quick. Giles scrambled for a response. “Well, er . . . yes. I suppose. That is, after all, how organic species are able to characterize it, so essentially, yes.” He wiped his face with both hands, realizing his ship was causing him more cognitive effort in an off-hand comment than the whole mission at hand.
Scamp didn’t respond.
Giles noticed on the flight-path screen that they’d adopted a route that would have them circling the space station in sequence around the areas that were most likely used for docking.
“I have visuals,” Scamp offered, answering a previous question, “but this may take a while.”
Giles slumped back in his chair.
“Ok,” he acknowledged, “lemme know . . .”
He opened his holo and started brushing up on the details they’d found in their search for Bill. He knew the best practices for going into negotiations, and with a bit of luck, if he was pleased with his own performance, he may have a nice little case study to impress his students with.
Hillside, approaching Mining Settlement, Mallifrax-8
Anne watched as Arlene made her way across the mining settlement.
She’d decided before she even left the cabin that she needed to give her enough distance, or else what’d happened on the ship would happen again. Only this time, she’d be sent back. And probably not trusted again.
She imagined, without Giles around Arlene, she may well resort to binding energy around the cabin . . . or something equally frustrating like chains or ropes. After all, she’d seen them amongst the equipment that she’d helped her and Giles bring off the ship. It’s just, Arlene didn’t know that she knew what was in the crates they’d been lugging.
Arlene’s form disappeared off towards a concentration of machinery and freighters. Anne guessed it might take her off the surface. In which case, Arlene was likely going to see that same Gilmurry guy that Giles had already been to see.
Anne pushed her hair out of her face and looked around, shielding her eyes from the sun.
If she followed her, Arlene would almost certainly be onto her. That kind of proximity, and Anne’s kind of wayward Estarian energy . . . no doubt.
And heading up to the ship would only be half the issue. Then she’d have to get back down. And for what? To see the ship? To prove she could defy Arlene? No. She just wanted to poke around and experience this world. No need to take unnecessary risks.
Her eyes darted from one area of the settlement to the other. The huts looked boring. They would be like the cabins, but probably not as comfortable.
Then her eye flicked further down the valley. The mines! That’s where she’d go. There would be all kinds of interesting stuff going on there. Blasters. Lasers. Pick axes . . . maybe even dwarfs, she pondered, remembering some of the highlights of the Meredith Reynolds’ archives Scamp had shown her to teach her about Earth history.
Though she never did quite understand why a girl would want to live in the woods with a bunch of mining people.
Anne started to move down the hillside, confident that Arlene would be further along and too distracted to detect her now. Her knees were weak from the downward climb, but she carefully picked her way so that wouldn’t cause her to fall.
The best route was going to be through the settlement. Maybe with Arlene gone she could ask someone about the place. After all, the Queegerts at the Royal Settlement had found her intriguing when she and Arlene had been The Crown’s dinner guests the night before.
Anne shrugged. Either way, it beat staying put in the cabin.
Aboard the Gilmurry Ship
The shuttle came to an abrupt stop moments after some questionable artificial gravitation protocols.
Arlene felt her stomach return to its normal place in her body and took a breath to make sure everything was still functioning.
Satisfied, she swung over towards the opening doors as casually as someone leaving the metro. She noticed the Queegerts eyes were on her and hoped that she hadn’t made some embarrassing faux pas by leaving the cart too soon. That would surely give her away as an intruder. If the Estarian thing hadn’t already.
The shuttle bay was large and dark, with floodlights illuminating key points of activity. It was like a deserted concert hall before they put in seating. Or a very badly arranged aircraft hangar.
She followed the flow of people which seemed to be heading onto the ship proper. Not that she knew for sure. She could be following them to a storage unit, for all she knew.
But after quite some walking, she emerged into a corridor. The gravity felt more stable here, and the air was definitely a higher quality. She determined that she must be in the more habitable areas of the ship.
Now to find Gillmurray, she decided. “Can’t be that hard.”
She connected her holo to the local network. They were using international protocols. That would help. Although, looking at the data, she could pull that it was a skeleton system. Not much there.
Map. Map! Yes, that would help.
After a few false starts, she managed to orientate herself in the direction of the corporate offices. That’s where he’d be, she decided.
She was right. As soon as she entered the carpeted section, she picked up signs and directions to the various areas—Executive Suites. That was what she was after.
She opened the door to a more plush-looking area. The carpets here were so thick, she was glad she hadn’t been wearing high heels. It would’ve either increased the drag or caused an ankle injury, for sure.
Not that she ever really wore heels. That was more of a Paige and Maya thing.
She smiled, remembering her friends. She’d have some stories to tell them when this was all over.
“Greetings,” a serious-looking receptionist announced as Arlene approached the desk.
“Greetings,” she responded. “I’m here to meet with Master Gilmurry,” Arlene told her.
“You have an appointment?”
“You could say that. Tell him the Estarian is here to see him.”
The receptionist looked at her blankly. “How do I spell that?”
Resisting the eye roll, Arlene patiently helped the receptionist out, then waited for her to call her through.
As it turned out, a shorter male Queegert came out to meet her. “This way,” he said. He was flanked by two security personnel with high-tech-looking blasters.
Arlene got up from her seat in the waiting room and followed him down the executive corridor. There was a heavy scent of good coffee in the air, and now and again, expensive perfumes and colognes.
Well-groomed Queegerts worked in their glass offices, moving between them with purpose and decorum. At least, until they saw the blue-skinned alien heading down the corridor, accompanied by the boss’s man-servant. Then their three eyes would lock on until she was entirely out of their view.
The smaller Queegert eventually stopped outside a set of doors at the end of the corridor. He opened the door and allowed Arlene to step inside.
Arlene glanced around the room, taking it all in—the gleam, the dark-colored furniture, the ugly, self-important Queegert sitting down one side of the table.
“I already spoke with your boyfriend,” he called to her. “He seemed to grasp the situation.”
Arlene acclimatized quickly. “I’m here with some new thinking,” she said, knowing full well that her way of breaking an impasse was a lot more violent than Giles’s would’ve been.
Gilmurry indicated for her to take a seat, which she did.
“What’ve you got?” he asked, leaning comfortably back in the chair.
“A suggestion,” she started. “You want to be able to extract that ore from the planet for a long time to come, right?”
He nodded.
“So if your Logans revolt or die from starvation, you’re not going to be able to keep pulling out ore at the same rate.”
“We’d just bring more in,” he replied, unconcerned.
“But in the meantime, you lose productivity,” she said slowly, as if she were talking to an imbecile. “I’m sure your accountants out there are well aware that to keep existing workers working is far more productive than shipping in new ones every time something goes wrong.”
He shrugged as best he could with his round head-body.
“And what about the falling productivity as these events occur. I’ll bet when the Logans are excited and enthusiastic about the opportunity, they produce far more ore.”
He leaned forward, picking up what looked like a strange kind of cigar made of a slightly greener leaf than she’d seen before. “This is true . . .” he agreed, his three eyes drifting off in different directions.
“There’s an easy way of ensuring that,” Arlene said, watching him carefully to make sure he was following.
“What’s that?”
“Pay them a fair price for the ore.”
He immediately began shaking his head. “We already do. Do you have any idea what goes into refining that stuff? It’s an incredibly intense and expensive process, and we’re already over-extended at this end trying to extract it.”
Arlene frowned. “But you can sell the etheriam for such a high price when you extract it . . . how can that be?
“The reality is, that’s hit and miss. Sometimes we can find buyers. Other times . . . nothing. Everything up to the point of sale is an investment. A gamble. We just need to make sure we limit our exposure as much as possible.
Arlene thought for a moment. “Well . . . what if you could find a more efficient way to extract the etheriam from the ore?” she asked.
“Impossible. We’ve had our best scientists on it for decades . . .”
Arlene smiled, tracing a finger on the boardroom table. “I bet I can find you a better scientist,” she wagered.
Tadovi Gilmurray regarded her carefully, as if he were actually considering his next play. “Hand him over and we’ll look into it.”
Arlene shook her head. “No way. He gets to work independently, and you pay for his work . . . and the results then translate into fairer prices for the Logans.”
Gilmurray realized this was going somewhere he wasn’t at all comfortable with. “Impossible. No way I could sell that to the family,” he retorted.
Arlene shrugged. “Well, then you’re going to have to find a better alternative, because you carry on like this, and you’ll be sure to lose everything you’ve got going on in that mine down there.”
The Queegert industry titan shuffled to his feet. “I think I’ve heard just about enough from you and your do-gooding professor. GUARDS!”
Arlene took that as her cue that she’d outstayed her welcome. “Well, then you’re an idiot,” she told him, standing up from her seat, too. “You’re going to lose everything by the time we’re through with you. You mark my words. This could’ve been an easy fix . . . but instead you had to be . . . stupid!”
Her face was red with the frustration of trying to deal with an idiot. She was ready for a fight, and just then, a flurry of guards appeared to give her just that.
Straight away one of them tried to grab her arm from behind. Without breaking her stare-down with the Gilmurry imbecile, she flipped him over her shoulder and threw him crashing down onto the very expensive-looking boardroom table. He was conscious . . . but unable to move.
The next two came at her, also from behind. Her arms became a blur of punches as she took them out. Body by body got slung across the room or dropped hard against the floor or some other piece of furniture.
Arlene started to feel a little less frustrated and a touch pumped from the exertion. An errant strand of black Estarian hair had been displaced from her hair knot and was irritating her lips. With the remaining three guards carefully backing out of the door, having seen at least some of the carnage that’d befallen their colleagues, she started straightening up, pulled the hair out of her face, and straightened her atmosjacket.
Gilmurry cowered in the far corner, terrified, but otherwise unscathed.
“Let’s talk again in the morning,” Arlene suggested amicably. “I think you’ll find my original proposal more compelling now.”
Gilmurry nodded feverishly as all three eyes watched Arlene Bailey turn and head out of the door.
Arlene–1, dumbasses–0, she mused. Now to get out of here without more troops intervening. She walked causally but with her wits about her, quickly and quietly retracing her steps back down to the shuttle bay.
Apart from anything, Anne had been on her own for too long, and knowing girls with spunk, it was highly unlikely she’d stayed put as she’d been told to.
Mining Settlement, Mallifrax-8
Relieved to finally be walking on the level, Anne stretched out her legs, taking a moment to rest and acclimatize.
Already she was drawing strange looks from the Queegerts busily transporting their ore from the mine to various storage containers.
She wandered into the center of the hut settlement, looking around, taking it all in.
“Are yo
u lost?” a voice asked from behind her.
Anne spun round. “Erm . . . no . . . yes. I mean . . . not really.”
The Queegert looked much like the others she’d met. The only way she’d managed to distinguish them so far was by the clothes they were wearing. But then being up close and looking a little more carefully, she noticed her questioner had slightly different features.
“I’m Anne,” she said, trying to figure out her story. “I’m here with the human and the Estarian woman who are trying to help with things here.”
“Oh, you’re with Arlene the Terrible?”
“The what?”
The Queegert chuckled, scratching a tentacle against where his temple would’ve been if he were human. “Yeah, we like naming people with joke names. Arlene made quite an impression on my friend when she visited with her game plan.”
Anne raised her eyebrows questioningly.
The Queegert waved his hand. “Not here,” he said. “But come . . . come meet Razeene. I’m sure he’d love to lay eyes on you.”
Anne grinned, pleased that she’d found someone with common ground.
Even if the common ground was Auntie Arlene.
“So,” the Queegert continued as they walked in the direction of the mine, “my name is Voyved.” His top eye swiveled round and looked down at her. “Are you her daughter?” he asked.
“More like her slave,” Anne replied.
Voyved chuckled. “I see . . .” he hesitated as they walked a few more paces. “It’s just . . . you look very similar.”
Anne smiled. “You mean, blue skin, vaguely humanoid?”
Voyved twisted to look at her with two eyes. “Yeah!” he said, missing the irony in her voice.
“We get that a lot,” she answered dryly.
“So you’re not related then?” He pressed.
Anne shook her head. “Nope. She’s kinda like my guardian, I guess. Or something. I wasn’t meant to be on this trip, but . . . well . . . I kinda snuck on board, and by the time they found me it was too late to take me back.”
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