“Boarding? For how long?”
Webb moved to the back of the cabin where he started pulling holdalls from lockers. “Tonight at least. It’ll take us that long to figure out where in the hell we’re going to start.”
“And we can’t berth here?” Hugo asked, retrieving his own pack.
“What’s the matter, Hugo? Afraid of trying to get through customs with your fake ID?” He straightened and looked him in the eye. “Because you should be. The moon’s not the place it used it be.”
“It got me through the Tranquility spaceport just fine.”
Webb raised his eyebrows. “Well, that’s a good sign. Still, we need to be careful. You service types have made it hard for a guy to make an honest living these days.”
“You’re living is honest, then?”
Webb grinned. “More or less. But anyway, Nod’s only got one bunk. So, unless you’re planning to get real friendly, we’re going to need boarding.”
Hugo retrieved his own pack from the locker and followed Webb off the skiff. The processed air in the harbour made him dizzy for a moment. He took a second with his hand against the hull to let it pass.
“You still get air-spin?”
“I’ve been spending a lot of time on Earth.”
Webb shrugged and strolled ahead without waiting. Hugo took another breath and hurried after him when there was less chance of him staggering. The harbour activity buzzed around them and the smell of the cheap air and engine fuel threatened to awaken unwanted memories. He shook them away.
Spacers zoomed past in flyers and on mopeds, but there wasn’t the grind and clank of heavy machinery or industrial lifters. Looking around, Hugo saw the berthed ships were mainly small cruisers and the queue at the exit way was mostly foot passengers.
“Not much trade in Pole-Aitken these days,” Webb said as Hugo kept looking around. “Industry’s moved more into the colonies.”
“The Service is investing heavily in the moon,” Hugo said, looking around as they moved on. “Moving the industry away and establishing more leisure and rec facilities instead. They think re-establishing it as a stopping point for Apollos Outreach Mars project will stabilise the strip.”
“They should invest in the colonies,” Webb muttered. “Not burden them with more industry than they have the resources to sustain. I swear they make the same mistakes over and over again. Still, can’t complain. Lack of certain fundamentals in these places keeps a fella in credit.”
Hugo couldn’t stop the involuntary glance towards the holdalls and cases Webb was carrying but the man’s stride was easy as ever and his face neutral. Hugo stopped himself from checking his fake ID was still in his jacket, aware of the armed Servicemen guarding the exit.
Webb went through the foot-passenger customs port without even glancing back. Hugo stood with his arms folded, resisting hanging his head to better hide his face. He had managed to avoid watching any newsreels since leaving Earth, but he was sure his suspension was big news and his face was probably doing the rounds on the solarnet. Again.
He was also sure that someone would have realised he wasn’t at his apartment by now. And possibly where he was going. He didn’t know exactly what Hudson would do once she found out, but he itched to be further along the trail than he was for when they came looking for him.
Still…he needed Webb. And Webb didn’t yet know what he’d agreed to.
The door slid open and he straightened himself and stepped into the port. A customs officer behind a screen directed him to scan his ID card across a panel in the wall as the beam of a scanner ran over him and his pack, bleeping. Hugo made himself breathe steadily as the bored-looking woman behind the plexi-glass watched something scroll on her screen and tapped a couple of keys, then a door on the other side of the port hissed open and she waved him through. Feeling his shoulders loosen, he strolled out into Pole-Aitken.
Hugo glanced around to get his bearings and followed. “East Quarter?”
Webb nodded. “Though it doesn’t look much like it did when I first came here.”
Hugo deliberately side-stepped asking which version of himself the clone was talking about. “We’ve sunk a lot of credit into cleaning it up.”
“I noticed,” Webb said, voice flat. He hoisted his holdalls higher on his shoulder, then raised his hand to flag down a taxi flyer. He bundled all but one bag into the back and then gestured to Hugo. “Get in. Head to Aitken Square. Plenty of boarding there.”
“What about you?”
“I don’t know how long I’ll be. You’ve got my comm number. Let me know where you end up and I’ll meet you there later.”
Hugo watched him stroll away into the bustling dock traffic, clenching and unclenching his fists but reminding himself that impatience was not going to work with Webb.
He climbed into the taxi and told the pilot to take him to Aitken Square. As the flyer climbed up onto a skyway, Hugo watched the neon lights of the spacescrapers whizz past. The city didn’t look much different to what he remembered once they’d left the better-lit groundways behind, apart from the black-and-grey Service patrol flyers at almost every junction and the webs of scaffolding where new sections were being added to the existing buildings.
Aitken Square was a web of platforms and walkways suspended between two megablocks at the edge of the Eastern Quarter. The flyer pulled over into a busy parking pool and he climbed out into the noise and bustle. There was a static tang in the air from being so close to the atmosphere shield and when he peered out between the buildings he could make out the flat desert of white and grey that spread to the horizon.
He was just glancing around at the neon signs advertising everything from economy accommodation to 3D film reel showings when his wrist panel bleeped. He grabbed the bags, ducked out of the foot traffic and pulled up his sleeve, blinking at the code that was flashing on the display. He frowned before searching the signs again and weaving his way across the square to a boarding house on the other side.
The Homely Inne, that was reached by a rickety walkway over a vast drop to the level below Aitken Square had nothing homely about it. The landlady in the lobby took a scan of his ID and Hugo again wondered how Webb had managed to stay so off the radar for the last three years with every boarding house and public transfer point taking records like this.
“What level of connection do you have?” Hugo said, scanning the browsing rates on a display above the counter.
“We’re on the moonframe,” she said, fishing keycards out of a drawer. “Solarnet too. Workstation’s in your room.”
Hugo nodded and took the keycard, avoiding her eyes as recognition dawned on her face, and ducked out of the lobby to find the room. The corridors were narrow with bare floors. He passed more anonymous numbered rooms, some with the sounds of TV shows or arguments leaking through the cheap doors, until he found his. He locked the door behind him, dumped the bags on one of the bunks and went straight to the workstation.
The machine booted up after only a small burst of static and Hugo was relieved to see the connections were good even if the hardware was not. Glancing around out of habit to confirm there were no cameras, he fished his interface out of his pack and patched it in behind the monitor. He took a breath and typed in the comm code that was still flashing on his wrist panel.
The connecting screen flashed for a couple of seconds before Rami’s face appeared.
“Rami? What’s happened?”
“Calm down, Hugo,” Rami said. “Nothing’s happened. I just wanted to talk to you.”
“It’s too risky to talk right now.”
Rami raised an eyebrow. “Relax, Commodore. This is exactly what I gave you the interface for. No one’s getting through those codes. How’s the ID working?”
Hugo winced. “Fine, so far.”
The beginnings of a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Feels odd, doesn’t it?”
“What does?”
“Working on the other side again.”
&n
bsp; “I appreciate your help, Captain, but you really should minimise our communication from now on, for both our sakes.”
“Yes, Commodore,” Rami said with a nod. “I understand. I just wanted to reiterate…whatever you need, sir, if you need backup, my unit -”
“Stop right there, Anita.”
“I mean it, sir,” Rami said. “I’m not linked to Eclipse so it can’t come back on your team. And you’re out there blind, deaf and alone.”
“That’s the whole point. I have to do this alone.”
“I can vouch for everyone in my unit, sir. No matter what happens, if you need backup, you are to call on me. I can have the Assurance with you within twelve hours.”
“I would have thought your workforce would be otherwise occupied.”
Rami frowned. “I’m not arguing with you. I’m telling you: you need help, you hail me. Understood?”
“Understood. Thank you, Anita,” he managed.
She nodded again, the frown easing before her eyes moved to focus off-screen. “You found him, then?”
“Yes.”
“How is he?”
“Same as ever, more or less.”
She let out a breath. “That’s good, I suppose.”
“He’s meeting me here. Do you want to speak to him?”
“No,” she said, before he’d finished speaking. “No, thank you,” she said again, calmer, though she couldn’t entirely mask her emotion.
Hugo nodded, letting out a heavy breath. “How’s Marilyn?” he asked quietly, after a pause.
“The same, sir,” Rami said, face softening. “I promise I’m keeping a close eye on her.”
“Thank you.”
Rami took a breath and straightened. “Catch that bastard Ariel, Commodore. But be careful. He’s hurt too many of us already.”
She signed off and Hugo busied himself with checking through the supplies she had provided him with. He had a new-model computer panel, hand-grips, climbing rope and scan-proof lockbox. He had to hand it to Rami, she’d managed to get some top-level tech for him, but only being able to have what he could carry on his back, it looked like pitifully little.
He checked and re-checked his weapons, all of which had fake licences loaded into his ID. He avoided thinking about the fact that despite the increased checks and Service patrols, with the right codes he was still able to bring two hand-held semis, a Newmarc Fourshot, two boot and one combat knife into Pole-Aitken.
He was just re-stowing the computer panel after checking the code guards for the fourth time, when the door opened and Webb swept in.
“If you think finding the slummiest boarding house in Pole-Aitken is going to stop you getting noticed, you’re wrong,” the young man said as he slung his bag down on the other bunk and glanced around the basic room. “The landlady recognised you.”
“How do you know?”
“Because when I turned up, she recognised me. And that doesn’t happen unless you’re around.”
“It doesn’t matter if people recognise me. It only matters that they realise I’m acting on my own.”
“Hence our friend ‘Cameron Bale’?”
Hugo nodded.
Webb shook his head. “So what now?”
“Are you done with your ‘business’?”
“I’m done for today,” Webb said. “I guess you better fill me in on whatever little it is you have on this creep. Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“I know I’m going to need a drink for this.”
*
Webb found a bar with dim lights and a view over Aitken Square. There were clusters of people leaning on the bar and around the tables, mostly spacers though there were some Earth-tanned people with the wide-eyed look of tourists. Webb ordered and they took a table nearest the window. There was an awkward moment when they both wanted to take the seat facing the door. Webb relented with a sardonic look and sat in the seat facing the bar.
“Old habits die hard, I guess,” he said as their drinks arrived. The waitress gave them a long look but something on her order pad bleeped and she scurried away. “So,” Webb continued, though his eyes had followed the waitress. “You never got Rami to fix your face up, huh?”
Hugo touched the scar that he had got from storming the Resolution three years ago, but then dropped his hand. “It makes sure I don’t forget,” he said, not letting himself look at the white lines scarred into the skin of Webb’s neck as he did so.
Webb raised an eyebrow as if guessing his thoughts. “You think you were ever likely to forget? I laid bets with myself that Harvey would have made you fix it. Guess I owe myself. Come on then,” he continued, taking a mouthful of his drink. “What exactly do you have on this blade of mine?”
“Not much. He has no official record or Service profile.”
“Figures.”
“What do you remember about him?”
Webb looked fixedly over Hugo’s shoulder as he took a drink and Hugo saw that his hand was tight around the bottle. “They called him Ariel, though if that’s his real name I’m Duran McCullough.” Hugo glowered and Webb grinned. “Sorry, bad example.”
“You shouldn’t joke about that.”
Webb raised his eyebrows. “Oh yeah?”
“Yes,” Hugo said. “Governor McCullough’s revolution didn’t die with him, or with Admiral Pharos either. There are still separatists wanting independence for the Lunar Colonies. If anyone else finds out McCullough had a son they could use you to be the figurehead of another rebellion just as Pharos did”
Webb gave him a hard look. “Not to remind you of this yet again, but I’m not actually McCullough’s son. I’m not anyone’s son, in fact. Unless you count that medic Yoshida, I guess.”
Huge felt heat ride through his face. “I don’t count him as anything.”
Webb leant forward on his elbows, still with an edge to his expression. “He’s more my father than any long-dead revolutionary, Hugo. He created me, whatever I am. Not that I’m expecting him to show up to take me to a baseball match or anything anytime soon. What happened to him, anyway?”
Hugo clenched his fists. “He disappeared after the uprising. His arrest warrant is still standing, though.”
Webb sighed and took a drink. “Beginning to see more why you need my help. Seems the Service can’t pull its head out of its New Age ass far enough to find any of its enemies. Still,” he added, as Hugo bit his tongue. “Can’t complain as it can apparently help a guy earn some credit on the side.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me about Ariel?” Hugo said to get them back on topic.
Webb shook his head. “All I know is his codename and that Admiral Pharos and LIL were one of his clients.”
“You don’t remember anything else?”
Webb stared at his bottle. “Only what he did. How he spoke. And that he’s from Haven.”
Hugo took a swig of his beer to try and drown the fluttering in his belly as he watched realisation dawn on Webb’s face.
“You bastard,” he growled.
“Zeek -”
“You lying bastard. All that shit about needing me?”
“I do -”
“Yeah, to be your fucking Sponsor to get onto Haven.”
“Not just that, Webb.”
“Then why didn’t you just ask? Why didn’t you just say, ‘Webb I need to get onto Haven and you’re the only unfortunate fucker in my stuck-up Service world that’s been through probation’?”
Hugo laid his hands flat on the table and looked Webb in the eye. “I didn’t mention Haven because I knew you wouldn’t listen to anything else if I did. But what I said is true. I need you because you can get me on board, yes, but more than that. I need you because you’re good at this. Because you know things. And after what this guy has done, I will do anything, anything, to bring him in. I thought you would feel the same.”
Webb shook his head. “You don’t know me as well as you think you do. I’m not the real Webb.”
<
br /> Hugo slammed his fist on the table and Webb jumped. “You kept his name. You kept his connections. You kept his life, just as I said you should. You look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t have a right to them.”
Webb leaned over the table. “You don’t have the first damn clue what it’s cost me, so don’t you dare sit there and tell me who I ought to be.”
The clone shoved his chair back, drawing glances, and paced away. Hugo went after him and grabbed his sleeve. Webb swore but Hugo clung on, not caring if it hurt and used his greater strength to haul the slighter man back to the table. Webb stopped pulling away but didn’t sit. His eyes were blazing.
Hugo let his hold drop and deliberately sat down without breaking eye contact. Eventually Webb glanced round and resumed his seat.
“You’ve got a nerve, Hugo. And a bastard of a temper.”
“I know.”
“Is this why you only got as high as Commodore? Even with Special-Commander Mom to grease the pole for you?”
“Mother is the only reason I haven’t been discharged for real.”
Webb folded his arms and regarded him. “At least you’re honest.”
“With you? Always.”
Webb glared. “Except when angling for Haven Sponsorship.”
“I didn’t lie.”
Webb took a swig of his drink then narrowed his eyes. “Double my fee. Then I’ll consider it.”
“Whatever it takes.”
Webb leaned forward on his elbows and looked Hugo in the eye. “Do you even have the faintest idea what you’re asking for, here? Wanting to get Sponsored for citizenship on Haven?”
“I have an understanding.”
“Make it bleaker. And more dangerous. Then you’re getting close. If Haven knows a Serviceman has snuck onto their colony after one of their own, Sponsor or no Sponsor, lynching will be the best we can expect.”
“That’s why we have to be careful.”
Webb surveyed him for a long moment. “You think you can do this? Even double my fee is not worth Sponsoring a guy with a temper and a score to settle. I’d rather drift myself now.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“You’ll have to be. You’ll also have to do everything I say.”
Haven (The Orbit Series Book 2) Page 3