Cold Revenge

by Jaleta Clegg

  "I’ll deal with the port authority," Jasyn said. "You two go find the jewelry. And this time, don’t end up at the police station."

  "Yes, ma’am," Clark said and snapped a salute.

  She grinned and whispered something in his ear. He grinned back.

  "I thought we were in a hurry," I said.

  "We are." Jasyn turned away. "What needs done besides refueling?"

  "Water tanks need dumped," I said. "And probably the collector bins. Other than that, we should be good for several more jumps."

  She nodded and gathered the papers she would need for port authority. "What do you want me to do about our new crew?"

  "Just find out if the Sidyatha has anything out on them, first," Clark said. "After that, we can figure out what we’re going to do."

  We collected a pile of credit chips and headed out. We were at the far end of the landing field, which on Shamustel put us almost a mile from the main port. We walked. Jasyn and Clark held hands. I pretended I didn’t notice and I wasn’t jealous.

  We reached the main entry to the port city and waited in line. Shamustel was not an open port. Everyone who came in or went out had to pass the checkpoint. The guards at the checkpoint gave me a sharp look when I presented my id plates. We were asked to step to one side and wait. The supervisor came out of his office only a few moments later. It was the same police supervisor I’d talked to the last time I was here.

  "Captain Dace," he said and gave me a tight smile. "What brings you back here?"

  "Business." I couldn’t remember his name.

  "I trust there will be no unpleasant incidents this time?"

  "I hope not," I answered.

  He gave me a measuring look. "I trust you will keep our planet as peaceful as it was before you arrived?"

  "Of course she will," Jasyn said and smiled at the supervisor. I almost felt sorry for him.

  He let us go. Jasyn went her own way, to the port offices. Clark and I headed into the city. I only vaguely remembered where the shop was.

  We wandered the streets of the market district. They were designed for pedestrians. Flitters zipped overhead. Lots of people strolled along the street between planters overloaded with blue and white flowering bushes. The weather was perfect, slightly cool but bright and sunny. I turned down the street I thought the shop was on.

  "It should be about halfway down, on that side," I said. It looked familiar. I remembered a kitchen implement shop we passed.

  We got to the next main crossing without finding the store. I stopped and looked back.

  "It should have been back there," I said to Clark.

  He walked with his hands in his pockets, trying to look casual. He was on alert, watching everyone around us.

  "I doubt anyone’s going to shoot at us this time," I said.

  "Targon’s still after you and Shamustel’s security forces didn’t stop them last time."

  "We don’t know it was Targon last time. It could have been some small-time thugs trying to move in. The store should be right here." I frowned at the garish front of a music store. Loud thumping music with wailing instruments overflowed into the street.

  The number stenciled on the front window matched the address I had for the jewelry store. I walked up to the open door.

  "This is it?" Clark asked.

  "No, but they might know what happened." I pushed the door open. The volume of music increased.

  I hesitated in the doorway, deafened by the pounding music. I couldn’t see anyone in the store. Racks of music were scattered haphazardly around the space.

  A head popped up from behind a rack. I didn’t know if it was male or female. The hair was long and stringy and sported rows of beads and feathers and other doodads. "Can I help you?" the person mouthed. The person turned away and bellowed something at the back of the store.

  Another head, similar to the first, showed briefly from a back office. The volume dropped. "What did you say?"

  "Turn it down, we got customers," the first one said. "I think," it added, turning to look back at us in our shipsuits. "Don’t look like the ones that usually come in for our music." It eyed us up and down. I looked back. Male, I finally decided. Maybe.

  With the volume down, the music was nice. Instruments wailed to a jaunty beat. Clark flipped through a selection, browsing.

  "What can I do for you? What kind of music you like?" He stepped out from behind the rack. He wore baggy, shapeless clothes in shades of gray. Beads of all colors sparkled unexpectedly from random places in his clothes.

  Clark picked up a cube and glanced over the titles. "This looks good."

  "Two fifty," the clerk said. "Jammin Smaps, good group. We’ve got all their music collections here." He shuffled through a shelf near Clark.

  "We aren’t here to buy music," I started.

  "I’ll take all five," Clark said. "I’ve got their first album."

  "You’ll like these," the clerk assured him as he handed a stack of cubes to Clark. "We’ve got a dozen more groups over here I think you’ll like."

  I caught Clark’s eye behind his back.

  "I’ve been looking for their albums," Clark said. He liked music? After sharing a ship with him for most of a year, there was an awful lot I didn’t know about him. Was I really that self-absorbed? It wasn’t a pleasant thought.

  Clark picked out a dozen cubes.

  The clerk led us back to his desk and rang them up. "That’s an even thirty credits."

  Clark paid him and took the bag of music. "By the way, what happened to the jewelry store that used to be here?"

  The second clerk popped back out of the office. "That fluttery stuff? Way cool when you sniff—"

  "Ssst," the first clerk hissed. He gave us a suspicious look. We tried to look innocent and not interested in whatever they sniffed. It wasn’t hard, I didn’t care if they wanted to snort ship exhaust. It was their brains that would get fried, not mine.

  "We had a business understanding," I said. It wasn’t really a contract or even a deal. I’d been given a sample of her necklaces and said I’d try to come back for more sometime. Or something like that. A lot had happened since then.

  The clerk looked at our ship patches. "What ship are you from?"

  "Phoenix Rising," Clark answered.

  "The flaming phoenix," the second clerk said, grinning hugely. Beads sparkled on his teeth. "Rocking!" Whatever he liked to sniff, it wasn’t helping his IQ.

  "Oh, yeah, she said something about you. Said you’d be coming back," the first clerk looked at us with more interest. "There’s like three big crates of stuff for you."

  I was completely puzzled. "What happened to her?"

  He shrugged, which set beads glittering in places I didn’t want to watch. "She just like packed up and left one day. Said things were moving, whatever that means. She gave us like the whole lease for this place, paid for almost the whole year already. Said all we had to do was watch for you to show up and give you that paper." He scrambled through the desk. He held up an envelope triumphantly.

  I took it, it had my name and ship written on the front, in handwriting that looped and twirled, in sparkly lavender ink, which didn’t surprise me in the least. I opened it and pulled out the sheet of paper inside. The same fluttery handwriting covered the page. I read it and handed it over to Clark.

  The owner of the jewelry store, I’d never learned her name, was leaving due to personal business. She knew I’d be back for the jewelry. It was mine, all of it, to do with as I pleased. I had to pay for the storage fees. She’d talked the Guild of Independent Traders office into holding it for me.

  Clark handed the paper back to me. "You must have made quite an impression."

  "She said like you were the only one who ever really appreciated her work," clerk one said to me. He opened his eyes as he spoke. I wished he hadn’t. His eyes were red and bloodshot, due in no small part to the metallic decorations glued to his lashes. Or maybe it was whatever he and his friend sniffed. "She left a fe
w with us. We hung them up as a tribute to her. She was one cool chick, if you know what I mean." He grinned, showing off blotchy yellow teeth and glittering beads.

  "She was," I said, agreeing even though I had no idea what he was saying. I edged towards the door. "Thanks, you’ve been a great help."

  "Come back some time," he said to Clark. "I hear Jammin Smaps is releasing another set next month."

  "I’ll keep that in mind." Clark waved as we left.

  We walked back down the street, heading for the Guild offices. Clark seemed a lot more relaxed. He read the card that came with his music. "I haven’t heard any of these before."

  "You didn’t have to buy anything," I said. "It helped, but it wasn’t necessary."

  "What if I wanted to buy it anyway?" He slipped the card back into his bag. "I happen to be one of the Jammin Smaps oldest fans."

  "Age wise?"

  "The singer was one of my friends back in school," Clark said. "And I like their music."

  I felt stupid.

  Clark grinned. "Ask nicely and I’ll let you listen."

  The Guild offices were just ahead. The fake pillars across the front looked tacky. The whole port city was afflicted with a plague of massive pillars too chunky to look good. At least in my opinion, the people of Shamustel obviously thought differently.

  We walked up the wide steps to the door. Clark stepped behind a pillar and looked behind us.

  "What?" I asked quietly.

  "I thought I saw someone trailing us. Either no one is back there, or they’ve taken lessons since we were here last."

  "Not what I wanted to hear."

  "Go get the jewelry and I’ll keep watching." He took a position behind the pillar where he could see the whole street without being seen.

  I went inside and hoped the rules against loitering wouldn’t apply to Clark. Or that he could talk his way around them. I hoped he was mistaken about us being followed. The lobby was cool, the granite floor polished to a high gloss. I crossed to the reception desk.

  The man on duty behind it glanced up, his fingers never paused in their typing. "May I help you?" His accent spoke of Inner World culture.

  "Captain Dace, of the Phoenix Rising. There was a cargo put in storage here for me."

  He indicated a scanner built into the countertop. I stuck my thumb on it and repeated my name. The scanner beeped.

  "Welcome, Captain," the receptionist said. His fingers still typed information. He looked at a separate monitor. "Your membership fees are due." His fingers moved to a different keypad. "With storage fees on the crates, the total is two hundred sixty three credits."

  "I paid dues six months ago, one hundred credits," I protested. "Storage rates are not that high."

  "Your dues have gone up, due to reckless behavior on your part," he said, still in that cultured, pleasant voice. "Your membership status has been shifted to probational."

  I was very tempted to swear. I bit my tongue instead.

  "We show no records of any Guild registered trading for almost six months." He looked back at me, questions in his bland eyes.

  I pulled my id chip out, I’d taken the precaution of registering our last few trades on it. The Guild liked to keep track of its members. I handed the tag over. He ran it into his machine. He handed the tag back. I put it in my pocket.

  "Record lag," he said. "We haven’t gotten any updates from the Guild offices in that sector for a while." He scrolled through the list of trades I’d recorded, starting with the cargo we’d hauled off Parrus. "The Sidyatha and the Frontier? Have things really been that tight, Captain?"

  I wasn’t sure if he was asking to be polite or if he really wanted to know. I answered anyway. "The company ships have that sector buttoned fairly tight. At least for ships like mine. I don’t have the equipment to haul the cargoes that they won’t."

  "Please submit a full report, so we can update our information."

  I nodded. It was one way to help move me back to full status instead of probationary. That ranking hurt. The Guild was very selective in its members. I’d sweated to get a membership and now they were threatening to take it away.

  I forked over the money. The whole amount. My pocket was a lot emptier.

  "Your cargo is in storage locker seventeen C," he said calmly, as he entered information into his comp and tucked the credit chips out of sight. "Take the stairs behind you down one floor. It’s the second hall on the left. Will you be needing a transport?"

  "I don’t think so." How big could the boxes be?

  "I can arrange transport if you decide you need it." He went back to his contract entry.

  Locker seventeen C was a closet with a stout lock. It opened at my touch. Three boxes sat on the floor. I picked them up without any trouble, shifting them to the hallway. I opened one. Small velvet pouches filled the box, every color of the rainbow. I picked a red one and poured out the contents. Strands of gossamer gold floated free. A tiny winged creature crafted of jewels fluttered, caught in a knot of delicate gold. The workmanship was exquisite. This one had wings of shimmering pearl with touches of peach and yellow. The one I’d been given before was lavender. Jasyn wore it sometimes. I put the necklace back in the pouch. The box was clear full, hundreds of them. She’d given me her whole stock. Outright given it to me. It was worth thousands. Why?

  The question niggled at me as I reclosed the boxes then picked them up again. I carried them up the stairs.

  The man at the desk glanced at me, never pausing in his work. "Will you be using the storage locker any longer?"

  "It’s empty."

  "Are you going to register a cargo?"

  "We’ll come back and see what you have available. These are personal."

  He nodded. I left, still unsettled by his news of my status change.

  Clark lounged against the building, just behind a pillar. I handed two of the boxes to him. We started back to the ship.

  "This is it?" he asked.

  "There must be hundreds. Why did she give it to us? All of it? It must be worth thousands."

  "You can answer that better than anyone. Are we going to get a cargo?"

  "Do we want to spend the time?"

  "You there," someone shouted behind us.

  I ignored it.

  "You, Captain," the voice continued. "Captain of the Phoenix Rising."

  "I think he means you," Clark said.

  We stopped and I looked behind. "Too late to pretend we didn’t hear him," I muttered. It was Juntis Shoot. I’d signed on a cargo with him the last time we were here. He was still looking for cheap transport for his ugly ceramics, I was sure of it.

  "Captain," he said again, panting as he caught up to us. He was thin, all angles and pointy elbows. The glasses he affected slipped down his nose. He shoved them up with one bony finger. "I believe we had a contract. You skipped out on your agreement. I’ve filed a grievance with the Guild." He looked smug.

  I wanted to smack him over his balding head. No wonder I was on probationary status. "Our contract was for a trial run only. We fulfilled that contract. I regret that the agreement didn’t work out." I regretted signing it in the first place, but he didn’t need to know that. I had to talk him into retracting his grievance claim.

  "You agreed to ship my ceramics," he said.

  "One run only." I shifted the box to one side.

  "You broke your contract," he said. "The final shipment was two weeks late."

  "Due to unforeseen circumstances," Clark interjected. "We noted that and reduced the charges accordingly."

  "You broke contract," Juntis insisted. "I’ve got three warehouses full of shipments waiting for you to finally show up and take them. I won’t pay for the first three deliveries, if you make it on time."

  "We aren’t taking your shipment," I said.

  "You are under contract."

  "No, we aren’t," I repeated. I wanted to add that his ceramics were almost as ugly as he was but I managed to refrain myself.

  "You s
igned—"

  "Read it over more carefully, Juntis Shoot," I said. "Trial basis only. I have a notarized copy of the contract on my ship if you can’t find yours. And it was recorded with the Guild. You had no grounds to file a grievance."

  "You signed a standard contract," he sputtered.

  "Amended to a trial contract," I shot back. "And your rates barely covered docking fees and fuel costs. I’m not surprised your goods are still sitting in your warehouses. No trader with any brains would ever sign any kind of contract with you."

  He turned red, sputtering incoherently.

  I turned on my heel and stalked away.

  Clark followed. "You admit you have no brains?" he teased when we were out of earshot.

  "Shut up, Clark."

  "He’s going to cause trouble."

  "He already has. The Guild changed my status to probationary. And they charged me three times the normal rate for fees."

  "You just paid those."

  "Tell them that."

  We stopped near the gate to the landing field. Clark handed me the other two boxes.

  "You take these on to the ship and I’ll see what I can work out with the Guild. Jasyn called while you were inside. She said there isn’t any word out from the Sidyathari on our new crew members. I’ll go with her over to the Patrol offices and see what we can do about them."

  "But—"

  "I can talk to Lowell as well as you can. I used to work for him. You go back to the ship and try to ignore Jerimon. Take a nap, play with the cat, something."

  I settled the boxes and nodded. "Just be careful what you agree to," I warned him.

  He grinned and waved as he turned back to the port city. I made my way through the gate and hiked across the landing field to my ship.

  Chapter 18

  The hatch stood open, letting in the breeze. The day was pleasant, slightly cool, with just a hint of wind. The top box was starting to slip. I put all three down and only took one in with me. It was quiet inside the ship. Ginni talked to Habim in the engine room. Jerimon was on the com in the cockpit. I caught my name. I set the box on the table, then stepped closer, wondering why he’d be calling someone on Shamustel about me. Reporting in to Lowell, I supposed.