“He must be psycho-dreaming again. I hope he doesn’t forget to push the button.”
“What button?”
When I saw the stunned look on his face, I chuckled, knowing the doors would snap open automatically moments before we were pulled down into the vertical docking shaft.
“Very funny,” Jase said, realizing I was joking.
Hades City had been doing this for over fifteen hundred years. A thousand of those years had been during the Embargo, when mankind had lost its interstellar access rights, and Hades handled only their own local interplanetary craft. Like every other human settlement, Hades City had been forced to survive for ten centuries, cut off and alone, because a group of thirty-second century religious fanatics – opposed to contact with non-humans – had attacked the xenophobic Matarons. At a stroke, the fanatics not only created a formidable enemy who would accept no apology, but they set our civilization back a millennium.
The Galactic Forum had had no choice but to impose the Embargo. The Access Treaty was the basis of Galactic Law and we couldn’t avoid its first and most important principle, the Responsibility Principle: that every species is responsible for the acts of all its members.
Responsibility was not just for law abiding citizens, but for every member of the species – no exceptions, no excuses.
For most species it wasn’t a problem. For mankind it was a nightmare, because we had a special genius for producing crazies who thought they knew better than the rest of us. The Embargo had been intended to give us time to learn to govern ourselves, while also placating the enraged Matarons. Now that we had only fifty years to run on our second five hundred year probation, no-one – not even pirates and criminals who obeyed no other law – dared risk a second violation, because the next Embargo would be ten times longer than the first.
No sane human dared contemplate what ten thousand years of isolation would mean, yet there were still a few lunatics who desired nothing more than a second, vastly longer Embargo. It was why no mercy was shown to any who might put at risk mankind’s interstellar freedom.
When we were ten clicks out, we reached the charcoal black graded flyway with its single line of lights leading to the city doors. Ragged cliffs raced past on either side as we skimmed fifty meters above the ground on thrusters and momentum alone.
“Silver Lining, your approach is within safe operating limits,” Hades Control informed us reassuringly.
“That’s what he thinks!” Jase said, irritated by my feathering of the engines.
“At least they’re not waving us off,” I replied lightly, knowing my flying had been deliberately borderline incompetent. If prying eyes were watching, they’d underestimate me as much as my ship.
The autonav threw a sensor read of the catcher’s mitt onto the screen. It was a circular net of magnetic fields strung between the canyon’s cliff walls. With the mitt looming large ahead of us, I let the ship have its way. At the last moment, the Lining rolled until our maneuvering engines were pointing at the magnetic field, then she threw hard G’s at our inertial field, killing our velocity. For a moment we hung motionless, almost dead center of the mitt’s sweet spot above two massive horizontal slabs of bleached white armor set into the canyon’s burnt floor. The enormous doors shielded an entrance wide enough to accommodate the largest ships and made the Silver Lining look like an insect by comparison.
The City’s docking system snatched us out of the vacuum and hurled us at the doors like a feather. The white armor slabs raced toward us, then a moment before we struck, they snapped apart just enough to let us in. We plunged down into a deep vertical shaft hundreds of meters across as the doors crashed together above us with enough force to cut a ship in half. Protected from the star’s heat, our shield cooled rapidly as a conveyor of docking fields carried us down past rock walls illuminated by two opposing rows of white lights. The autonav sensed the magnetic fields now enveloping the ship and cut power to the engines and thrusters, automatically passing responsibility for ship safety to the spaceport’s docking system.
“Silver Lining to Hades Control,” I said, “we are engine stopped and mag-locked. She’s all yours.”
“Hades Control to Silver Lining, confirmed. We have maneuvering responsibility.”
Verbal confirmations hadn’t been needed since the trickle of new Earth-tech had become a flood after contact had been restored centuries ago, but old habits die hard, especially those drummed into you from age four by a hard headed old man determined to turn his sons into first class pilots. Even though I trusted the tech, I still felt uncomfortable unless I heard the controller’s confirmation.
Five kilometers beneath the surface was the spaceport’s central cavern. It was connected to four large subterranean hangers by horizontal tunnels equally spaced like spokes on a wheel. The docking fields carried us into one of the spokes, past black rock walls punctuated by horizontal windows, to a well lit cavern and a berth that could have accommodated a much larger ship. Our landing struts lowered automatically, then the docking field dissipated and a tubular pressure bridge extended from the cavern wall, sealing itself over our starboard airlock.
I had to admit, the Hades moon moles had done a good job from the moment they’d plucked us out of the sky above their doors until they’d tucked us into our berth. Not bad for a free city over eleven hundred light years from Earth.
“Hades Control to Silver Lining, you are locked and docked.”
“Thanks Hades Control,” I said with just the right amount of relief.
“Log your manifest with the Port Authority before disembarking. Payment of docking fees and taxes is required before transferring personnel or cargo. Failure to make all payments in full will result in your cargo and ship being impounded until all debts are paid. Acknowledge this contract.”
Being trapped for a thousand years in one of the least hospitable systems humans inhabited had made the Hadians good at their job, but somewhat lacking in the social graces. “Contract acknowledged.”
“Hades City is a lawful enterprise complying with all Earth Council directives. As such, infringements of the Access Treaty are punishable by death,” the Controller added in a bored monotone, obviously a message he repeated to every arriving ship. It was a warning I’d heard many times in many systems – and they all meant it. The Hadians took their Treaty obligations seriously because, in spite of their miserable location, they were prospering.
After the Embargo had been lifted four hundred and fifty years ago, it had taken nearly one hundred and twenty years for Earth to discover Hades City had survived. Many similar outposts had not. Once Hades was back on the map, trade resumed and a trickle of new Earth-tech began to reach them. Within a decade, the navy sent engineers out to set up a repair base for new-gen starships, turning Hades City into a key logistical center at the outer edge of human settlement. Hades remained a free city, but a welcoming port to Earth Navy ships operating far from home. Once the navy came to stay, the money flowed – lots of money. Little wonder they executed anyone who threatened their lifeline to the rest of humanity.
Mankind had learned the hard way that access to interstellar space was a privilege – not a right – a privilege that could be revoked in the blink of an eye.
I cut power to the shield, causing it to collapse rather than gradually de-energize. Anyone watching would believe the Lining’s shield had barely survived the extreme heat outside, concluding we were equipped with an ablative shield, rather than the much tougher bleeder type.
Jase threw me a sideways glance. “You’ll upset Izin doing that.”
I smiled mischievously as Izin’s voice sounded through the intercom.
“Captain, I remind you there are maintenance protocols for shield deactivation.”
“Thanks Izin, must have slipped my mind.” He was a smart little tamph and would know I was lying.
“I know you like playing games, Skipper,” Jase said, “but I think you’re a little paranoid.”
“Pa
ranoid . . . cautious – no difference. I’m still alive. That’s what counts.”
Out here, low life informants made a healthy living selling out traders to anyone with a few credits and an armed ship. In the Outer Lyra region, it was to the Ravens, although there were other Brotherhoods, each with their own territory, all loosely affiliated. I preferred making their job as hard as possible, which was why I kept my aces hidden and my weapons ready.
A sultry, over-sexed female voice sounded over the intercom. “Hello Captain. I’m pleased to inform you that engine shut down is now complete. You’ll also be delighted to know, the energy plant will be dormant in seven minutes.”
“What was that?” Jase asked incredulously.
“Tamph humor?” I suggested before activating the intercom. “Thanks Izin. Ah . . . not sure about the new vocalizer settings.”
Again, the ridiculously sexy female voice sounded on the flight deck. “My research indicated you boys would find this tonal combination stimulating, even arousing.”
I shut off the intercom a moment. “I swear, he’s trying to get even with me for crashing the shield.” The voice might have been stimulating coming from a female Homo sapien, but as we knew it was coming from a one point two meter high amphibian with an oversized head, large bulbous eyes and small triangular teeth, it was simply unnerving. “We liked your voice the way it was, thanks.”
“As you wish, Captain,” Izin replied in his standard male voice.
“Log the cargo,” I said to Jase as I climbed out of my couch. We were carrying data dumps to synchronize the city’s update level and one of the vacuum-radiation-sealed containers we were towing was full of supplies for Hades. “I’m going into the city to see what contracts are open.”
“No problem, Skipper,” he said without looking up. He was hurrying through his post-flight check list with a degree of concentration that told me he was keen to go moonside for a little recreation.
“And try not to get arrested this time.”
Jase gave me a wounded look. “Who me?”
“Any fines come out of your cut.”
Jase raised his hands innocently, “Only wine, women and song, I promise. No fights this time.”
“That’s what you said last time!” Doubting his sincerity, I headed for the airlock.
It was a short walk through the pressure bridge to our berth’s gate. It DNA scanned my hand before letting me into the spaceport, where to my surprise, I found the air didn’t have the stale metallic smell I remembered – a sure sign they’d upgraded their environmental systems since my last visit. Powered walkways carried many human and a few non-human passengers between the terminal and the ships, giving me an opportunity to practice using my threading’s sensors.
The bionetic filaments read and amplified impulses passing through my nervous system that normally went unnoticed by the human brain. The threading then selected and displayed information it decided I needed to know, or in answer to my queries. The sensory amplification was augmented by microscopic, biological machines designed to be indistinguishable from human bio-matter. The most useful of these was my DNA sniffer. Providing I had line of sight, the sniffer could sense DNA sequences at short range, enough to identify a contact in a large room or on the street.
The sniffer scanned every person I passed, checking their DNA codes against a database of the Orion Arm’s most wanted. Not surprisingly, I got a hit every few minutes. Hades City’s distance from Earth made it an ideal hiding place for humans on the run. To most alien law enforcement agencies, it was an obscure human backwater, which was why there was also a disproportionately high number of unsavory non-humans in the city.
Little did they know how easily they could be discovered, irrespective of disguises or appearance altering surgery. The hits ranged from petty criminals, escaped prisoners and missing persons to a few hard cases that the local Unified Police Force detachment would have locked away in their deepest, darkest dungeon – if they’d known they were here. The non-human criminals were all known Orion Arm species whose DNA codes had been passed to UniPol by their representative governments. Handing fleeing criminals to our neighbors was a good way to build trust, but keeping bionetic technology a secret was more important than making friends, so I let the Orion Arm’s mad and bad walk free.
The terminal was lined with screens listing every ship docked and their current status. There were personal data nodes everywhere for travelers to make enquiries or reservations, or contact ships directly. UniPol was supposed to watch all such communications on every world, but Hades City suffered from profound blindness where money making activities were concerned. It was a common trait among remote outposts.
It was why a precondition of renewing contact with Earth had been the merging of local police forces into UniPol. Integrating civil law enforcement into a single collective effort was officially intended to ensure local criminals didn’t commit Treaty violations and unofficially designed to ensure Earth’s enlightened interpretation of law was spread to every corner of Human Civilization. Local governments retained nominal influence over their police forces, but the direct link to Earth – and to the EIS – quickly became more important. Joining UniPol was a sign of commitment to working within the Access Treaty, bringing with it huge benefits, while refusal meant continued isolation from the rest of humanity. Very few refused. In time, every major center became committed to UniPol. Only at the most remote stations, far from oversight, was there an opportunity to bend the rules, and Hades City was about as remote as it got.
Outside the spaceport, I hopped a silver commuter tube to the central commercial cavern, the largest in the city. It was a well lit expanse filled with a mix of historic carved stone and shining metal and glass spires surrounded by genuine Earth transplanted trees and flowers. Hades had started out as an uninhabited robot mining base eighteen hundred years ago, but centuries of digging had created abundant empty space which the Hadians had turned into a surprisingly comfortable habitat. The curved ceiling several hundred meters above was covered by simulated blue sky and drifting white clouds, creating an illusion so real I almost forget I was deep underground.
The surface might have been a charred cinder, but the excavated interior was remarkably amenable for human life. Out of necessity, mankind had made constructing such habitats an art form because the galaxy’s prime real estate had been snapped up long before we entered the market. Interstellar civilizations had been emerging throughout the Milky Way for hundreds of millions of years, colonizing the garden worlds, leaving the late comers like us with a selection of barely habitable rocks no one else wanted.
It was the unavoidable fate of being the youngest interstellar civilization in a very old galaxy.
* * * *
The Bazaar was a rectangular cavern several kilometers long, south of the main business complex. The ceiling was smooth rock, not simulated sky, and the air was more like I remembered, breathable but metallic. Tailors, miners, workshops, hot food vendors and merchants galore were packed tightly together, all eager to sell me everything I didn’t want. I hadn’t been there in two years, but it had changed little. Aggressive peddlers still swarmed after me like insects, trying to shake my hand so they could get my attention and my credits, while a few shadowy types watched me pass, wondering if they could take me. Fortunately for them, none tried.
Emporium Zadim was right where I remembered it. Hideous outside and in, it was a gaudy place drenched in gold paint and heavy red drapes with a glowing sign out front flashing its name at every passerby. Two swarthy, muscle modded Berbers with uninviting demeanors and dressed in bright silks stood either side of the entrance. Judging by the indiscreet weapon bulges in their clothes, they were obviously guards, not doormen. When I passed them, their eyes followed me suspiciously, but they made no move to stop me.
The emporium’s walls were hung with elaborate tapestries depicting the history of the vast expanse of land encompassing parts of Asia and all of Africa. The theological emp
ire known as the Second Caliphate was the weakest of Earth’s four great collective-governments, known for trade and conservative values rather than the technology and pluralism that characterized the immensely rich and diverse Democratic Union. Not surprisingly, there were no tapestries recalling the terrorist attack on the Mataron homeworld in 3154, almost fifteen hundred years ago. Even after all these centuries, the Calies still tried to forget the disaster a few of their number had inflicted upon mankind. Ironically, that history now made them the least likely to violate the Access Treaty, so great were their own social taboos against causing such a calamity again. In front of the tableaus were polished sim-wood tables laden with glittering gilded garbage. The real merchandise would be hidden, out of sight of UniPol investigators and robbers alike.
“Sirius Kade! My dear friend, I thought you were dead!” A basso, accented voice boomed across the room. He said it with such conviction, yet I knew his spies would have reported the arrival of the Silver Lining before we’d even berthed.
Ameen Zadim was a Caliphate merchant; corpulent, bearded, black bushy eye-brows and a hideous purple sash that held in his stomach and concealed the small, but highly effective stinger he always carried. Cali merchants like Zadim were found in most Union affiliated settlements, mostly because the Caliphate had established few colonies of its own, preferring instead to take advantage of the Union’s openness and tremendous expansionist energy.
He advanced towards me, arms wide and embraced me warmly. Naturally, I kept one hand on my credit stick, so he couldn’t steal it. “Ameen,” I said returning the embrace with less enthusiasm, “You son of a camel thief, you’ve lost weight!”
Zadim stepped back, laughing, patting his expanding girth. “Yes, it’s true, my wives feed me too well.” He nodded reassuringly to the Berber muscle-jobs at the door. They hadn’t taken their eyes off me for a second, but once Zadim vouched for me, they returned their malevolent gaze to the street outside.
“Come! I have coffee – not that terrible synth-bean poison the Chinese are selling! This is the real thing, all the way from Lam Dong Habitat, premium grade Viet beans. You should buy some. I know where you could double your money, only a week from here in your fine ship.”
Mapped Space 1: The Antaran Codex Page 3