by J. S. Morin
Carter brightened. “You want the job? It’s all yours. I’ll call the other guy back, and tell him no hard feelings. That work for you?” He punctuated the question with his best obsequious smile. Who cared about dignity and self-respect when broken bones—or worse—were on the table?
“How about your passcodes?” the dark-skinned woman asked in an Earthy accent.
So that was their game. “Nah. Not playin’ that. Instant you get access to those files, I’m just a witness. Am I right? Don’t answer that. You and I both know it’s true.”
“How long will it take you to break into it?” Ramsey asked the dark-skinned woman with the datalens. Clearly, that meant she was his tech helper.
“Maybe a day or two,” she replied, uncertainty clear in her voice. Amateur. “Won’t know till I hook it up and take a peek inside.”
Carter scoffed. Right now, all he could count on was being indispensable. “Good luck with that. What’re you gonna tell him a week from now, when you still can’t get in?”
“Want me to try?” a lilting voice asked.
Carter twisted in his seat and pissed his pants—just a few drops.
“You’re… I saw the blaster shot go right through you!” Carter protested.
There she was: the woman in the pink sweatshirt. Unless Ramsey had scrounged up a pair of twins, there was no mistaking that sculpted body taken like a full-flesh scan from a girlie holo.
The woman had her hands tucked in the front pocket of the sweatshirt. When she pulled one out, a glowing symbol sprang to life between her fingers. “I’m harder to kill than you might imagine.”
“Enough of the back-and-forth,” Ramsey snapped. “We’re on a timeline. If he’s not going to cooperate, we’re bringing him with us.”
“I’ve got people,” Carter countered. “They’ll come looking for me. I’ve got protection, even from the Convocation. You mess with me, there’ll be more people after you than you can count.”
“I’m shit at counting,” Ramsey said with a smirk. “I’ve been over that number for years. Rai Kub, box him up.”
Carter frowned. It was a slang term he hadn’t heard but didn’t like the sound of.
Suddenly, the broker was lifted bodily from the chair. The rhino had hands like hydraulic clamps. Beating against the beast’s arms didn’t even provoke a response. Reaching up to try to claw at its eyes only resulted in the rhino craning its neck until all Carter could reach was a neck made of tree bark.
It wasn’t a long trip. The “box” turned out to be some sort of crate or footlocker. The rhino set Carter down inside and pressed him flat as it closed the lid.
There were no air holes.
Beating against the inside of the box, Carter shouted in desperation. “Hey! I’ll suffocate in here.”
The lid popped open a crack. Applying a sudden burst of strength against the underside had no effect. The rhino must have been holding it down.
A face appeared—the woman wizard’s. Her teeth shone like a toothsoap model’s. “Sorry. Wear this around your neck.”
She shoved a glass-beaded necklace through the crack, and Carter did the only thing he could think of: he put it on.
Breathable air wafted from the device, and the lid closed again, shutting him in darkness. Not knowing how much longer his captors might remain within earshot, one question sprang to Carter’s mind, and he couldn’t help shouting it through the wooden crate.
“Why does this thing smell like horse sweat?”
# # #
Wispy, coughing dregs of atmosphere clung to the Mobius feebly, as if hoping for escape from their ramshackle planet. Orbital space, clean and empty, greeted them with an unspoken admonition to stop visiting such dreary destinations.
Carl sauntered up to the cockpit, feeling pretty good about their raid. No one got hurt. Nothing was lost, stolen, or damaged in the process. And last but not least, nobody had interfered with them. The only thing that could have made their foray any more successful would have been if Carter had sung like a canary.
Actually, Carl mused, pausing in the middle of a game of Omnithrust Racer taking place in the common room, it would have been better if Carter had sung like a parrot since those could speak English.
“Nice work, Peachfuzz,” Roddy greeted him from the couch, not looking away from the game.
Carl’s eyes narrowed. It wasn’t like Roddy to just throw a compliment out there. “Thanks.”
“While you’re standing there like a docking pylon, mind beering me?”
After tossing the laaku an Earth’s Preferred from the fridge, for which no further thanks were forthcoming, Carl finished his trek to the cockpit to find out how things were looking time-wise.
“Nice work, baby,” Amy greeted him from the pilot’s chair. This time, though, the congratulations were accompanied by a smile and a pair of bright, shining eyes. Her sincerity was… well, sincere.
“What’s that blip?” Carl asked as something appeared on their short-range radar. Faendral’s Rock wasn’t exactly a hub of orbital activity. Anyone that close was either oblivious or had a reason to be approaching them.
Amy looked over and saw for herself. She bit her lip as she punched in a query for the computer. It was like asking a toaster for tax advice, but occasionally the old sack of circuits came up with an answer. “They’re broadcasting an ID that claims they’re planetary security.”
“Um…”
“Yeah, exactly,” Amy confirmed without Carl having to say it. Since when did this planetoid have a militia?
Hopefully, that blinking light on the comm panel would clear things up. Amy accepted the incoming transmission.
“Vessel Mobius, we have reason to believe that you were involved in an incident at Faendral Vehicular. We would like to get a statement from your captain.”
“A statement?” Carl scoffed, first checking to see that they weren’t broadcasting. “What do these guys think they are, a police force?” He waggled a finger for Amy to open the comm from their end.
Clearing his throat, Carl prepared his statement for the Faendral’s Rock authorities. “Sure thing. This should be brief. We were planetside for a bounty. We subdued and captured one male human suspect. There was minor property damage and no loss of life. We’re on our way to collect our payday for this scum. That good enough for you boys?”
“Roger that, Mobius. Have a safe journey.”
Amy closed the comm, shaking her head in disbelief.
Carl grinned. “This is why I love working border space. Those guys are playing cops and robbers. They were just fishing for an easy bribe, but they knew they weren’t squeezing a bounty hunter for a few terras. Most professional body-haulers would have opened fire before allowing an inspection team on board.”
“And us?” Amy asked. “What if they hadn’t bought it?”
Carl shrugged. “I assume we’d have stopped dead, and Esper could have pulled Mort’s old trick of dropping us deeper in astral than they could have followed.”
“She’s not Mort, you know.”
“Of course, I know that. Mort was a drop-dead gorgeous prude with a sanctimonious side the size of a cathedral. Esper’s just a scruffy old wizard with an obsession for sweatshirts and old war documentaries.”
Amy glared at him. Carl smirked with mischief in his eyes.
At the appointed location, the Mobius came to a halt, and without having to be told, Esper dropped them into the astral.
“She can pull off that trick, at least,” Carl noted.
“And the sweatshirt thing,” Amy concurred, and Carl heard a silent and that’s all you got right amended to the end.
# # #
The music was off. Yomin’s quarters were silent. At the end of the bed, Archie sat, hooked up to Carter’s computer core by as many cables as ran to Yomin’s own personal core. Carter’s rested on the bed between them.
“This is a little paranoid for a middleman,” Archie noted.
Yomin blew a rude noise at him. �
��I figured that out hours ago.”
The robot was right, of course. There was nothing they knew about Carter to justify the layers of encryption bolted over his computer like layers of armor. It wasn’t just a matter of security; from everything Yomin had uncovered, it would have been an arduous process of authentication and verification for Carter himself to get any use out of the system. It was set to badger him for verification at every step.
Yomin was about ready to hang the computer core from the ceiling and beat it like a piñata until the data leaked out. If only data security was ever so cathartic.
“Can you run a regression on all the biographical numbers we have on Carter?” Yomin asked.
Archie harrumphed. “Howie Carter, born May 11, 2520. And I’m not even sure that’s legitimate. This bug-brained job-juggler is as phony as my complexion. Want my guess?”
“Not really. Kinda busy here.”
“I think this fellow was some sort of mob tech watchdog. They have those, you know. Well, one day, this guy finds out something valuable, sells off the data, but has to go on the run. The money was good, but it wasn’t enough to last a lifetime. So he ends up broke, on the run, and with a reasonably lucrative skill set but no credentials to back it up.”
Yomin kept her eye focused on the datalens’ reports coming in of various attempts to crack the security lockouts. “That’s the plot of Data Familiaris.”
“Really? Bugger me, I knew I’d heard that somewhere.”
“You going to help or yak?” Yomin asked.
“I’m versatile.”
“Please don’t be.”
There was a knock at the door, and Carl opened it before either of them could reply.
“What if wasn’t dressed?” Yomin snapped.
Carl looked from Yomin to Archie, then back again. “I might settle a bet? How’s that core coming? We’re on a tight schedule here. If this job goes off before we get there, we might never track down the guy with the money.”
“It’s slow,” Yomin admitted. “We haven’t cracked the first layer of security yet. The good news there is that most data security is front-loaded to discourage hackers.”
“Sounds like it’s working,” Carl observed.
Yomin took hold of Carter’s computer core, wishing she had the strength to crush it between her hands. Rai Kub probably could have. She wondered how he kept from venting his frustration in destruction. The stuunji never lost his smooth.
“Actually, captain,” Archie said. The deference made Yomin instantly suspicious. “There’s a tool down in the monkey’s supply room that might speed things up oodles.”
“Sure. Want me to run down and grab it?” Carl asked. “Sooner we find out where we need to be, the sooner we can haul ions.”
Archie spread his hands in the manner of a bragging fisherman. “About yea long. About this big around.” Archie held his fingers in a circle. “Metallic. Hollow.”
“Uh, a conduit pipe?” Carl ventured.
“That’s not a tool,” Yomin added. Whatever joke Archie was making already wasn’t funny. Smashing the computer core was Yomin’s idea first.
Archie crossed his arms. “It is if you use it to beat the access codes out of that little weasel you’ve got crated up like a circus animal.”
With a sigh, Yomin unplugged from the core. “He may be right. I don’t know that we’ll get this cracked the new-fashioned way in time. Might be time to get all Cold War on our friend.”
Yomin pulled off her datalens and rubbed her eyes. Too much staring at the little screen wasn’t good for her vision. One of these days she’d need implantables. Without Mort around, the prospect didn’t seem so risky. Esper kept better hold on her magic.
“Not the way I was hoping to play this,” Carl said glumly. “But I’ll throw it to the audience to see what they can come up with. In the meantime, get a little rest.”
As Carl exited Yomin’s quarters, he cast Archie a sidelong look.
Once the door thudded closed, Archie leaned close and lowered his voice. “Why do I get the impression they think lewd things happen in here?”
“Do you record what happens in here while you’re shut down to recharge your fuel cells?”
Archie straightened indignantly. “Wonderful, now I can’t even be sure what goes on in here.”
# # #
The footlocker on the cargo bay floor looked a lot like a coffin. Or a sarcophagus? Why had ancient cultures been so obsessed with putting dead people in boxes?
That was a question for another time, Carl decided. For now, the body in this box was still alive.
He hoped.
With a nod to Rai Kub, Carl held his breath and hoped that they hadn’t accidentally murdered their only source of information on how to get into that data core.
Esper was on hand as well, just in case. Carter hadn’t shown any especially dangerous tendencies, at least not without a weapon in hand, but Carl was just used to having wizardly backup.
The lid popped open, and Carter sat up as if he were spring loaded. Fumbling the necklace off and discarding it at the bottom of the footlocker, he sucked in greedy breaths of air. “I never thought I’d yearn for starship air. Ramsey, you fucker, you have no idea the can of hurt you just opened.”
Carl was willing to let the guy punch himself to exhaustion before the interrogation started in earnest. “Enlighten me.”
“I’m a cog in so many machines it’d make your head spin off your neck like it was screwed on,” Carter ranted. “People are gonna notice me missing. Jobs will pile up. Payments won’t get transferred. Deliveries, drop-offs, rendezvous… all going to hell because I’m not there to plug A into B and make it all happen. I’m the guy who makes seamless happen for outfits that don’t like seams. Got it? They’re gonna track me down, and when they do, you’re going to be sorry.”
“I’m rarely sorry,” Carl observed, leaning casually against the railing to the stairs.
“It’s true,” Rai Kub confirmed in his deep bass. “He uses the word but rarely means it.”
“Hey!”
“It’s true,” Esper said with a sympathetic smile. “But that’s not why we’re here. You, Mr. Carter, have started something that we’d like to stop. There’s a planet with a religion of its own about to lose a priceless part of their spiritual heritage.”
“You gotta be shitting me,” Carter said, turning from Esper to Carl. “You’re… in this to stop some mud-puddle civilization from losing its ‘spiritual heritage’?”
Carl scratched the back of his neck. “What can I say? Times change. People change. One day a guy’s racing on the pro circuit, the next he’s running his own criminal syndicate on a hidden moon base, the day after that he’s all Indiana Jones.”
The criminal broker’s face screwed up in a frown. “Who?”
“Philistines,” Carl muttered to the cargo bay ceiling. “Henry Jones, a.k.a. Indiana, was a famous archaeologist who discovered the pyramids of Egypt and returned the mummies’ tombs to their rightful owners. Ark of the Covenant, too. All right back to the pharaohs. Oh, and the Holy Grail. Found that and gave it to King Arthur. I’m just following in the tradition of my ancestors.”
“I’m not following…” Carter admitted.
“Me either,” Esper muttered.
“Sometimes a little bit of hero in the DNA gets carried down through the generations. I just inherited some from my great-great-greatity-great grandfather Indiana, that’s all. Bound to happen sooner or later. Now, Carter old buddy, you gonna tell us who did take that job you offered us, or are we going to have to get all Mata Hari on your ass?”
Esper opened her mouth to object, but a quick glare from Carl shut her up. This was his rodeo, and the clowns were just there to keep the riders safe if they fell.
Not that Esper was a clown, Carl amended hastily. Bad metaphor. He could never be sure if she was ever reading his thoughts. Once in a while, Mort seemed to manage that trick, and Carl couldn’t be sure how much of that his appr
entice might have picked up.
Carter shook his head and hunkered down in the box. “You ain’t getting word one out of me, Ramsey. My whole life’s in that core. I’d rather see it jettisoned into a pulsar than see a guy like you with his filthy hands in it.”
“Would it change your mind if I washed them first?” Carl asked. “I can be reasonable here.”
“Plug your dick into a waste reclaim, Ramsey,” Carter shot back.
Involuntarily, Carl’s legs closed together. One of the downsides of years spent with Mort was the development of a vivid imagination.
“Airlock,” Carl said with a sigh.
“What!” Carter exclaimed. The middleman scrambled to find cover, but getting out of the box with Rai Kub standing over him was next to impossible.
“Oh, shut your yap, ya big baby,” Carl admonished, strutting over to just outside arm’s reach. “We’re not flushing you out into astral space. Yet. It’s just a nicer prison cell than that box. Kudos for not shitting yourself in Rai Kub’s footlocker—”
“Yes, thank you,” Rai Kub snuck in.
“But it’s not a long-term solution. Airlock’s got light, a comm, and—if we decide you’re more trouble than your worth—yeah, it’s got that whole open-to-vacuum feature, too.”
“Ramsey, you can’t—”
Carter’s objection was cut off as he was hoisted under Rai Kub’s arm and carried across the cargo bay. The stuunji carefully aimed a giant finger for the proper door control and pressed the button.
Carter grunted as the stuunji set him none-too-gently back on his feet. But as Rai Kub lined up a forearm-sized digit to press the button again, Carter made his move.
Fear can lend speed, aggression, and strength. Carter shot past the startled security officer before the big lug could react. Where exactly Carter thought he was going was anyone’s guess, but his first destination appeared to be the stairs up to the common room.
He never reached them.
Faster than adrenaline was the stuff that Esper’s magic did to her body. Mongooses studied holovid of her technique and marveled. Those little rodents, known for their reflexes, were still bound by the laws of physics. Their little clawed feet would have scrambled for purchase on the steel cargo bay floor, whereas Esper shot across like a blaster bolt, snatching Carter by the back of his collar.