Seeking Sirius

by Laure Reminick

  “Oh,” she whispered. Fair enough. He’s engaged. I’m engaged. Nothing can develop between us, which simplifies matters. Pearson has his harem. And I am going back to Mac. Good. Settled. “Great. Congratulations.” Since there was nothing to talk about, between them, about them, Alexa opted to change the subject. “So you’re not here for business?”

  “In fact, I am,” he said, looking relieved she didn’t demand explanations about his announcement. “I’m here to pick up a cruiser to deliver to Adalans.”

  Alexa peered onto the dance floor, searching for Rachel and Donny.

  Newcastle said quietly, “I found out more to convince you to be careful.”

  “Tell me something I don’t already know,” came her tart reply.

  From behind them, Donny moaned, “You are not gonna believe this. They eliminated us. And we were dancing way better than anyone else.” Rachel, standing behind Donny, lifted and dropped her shoulders. She scanned the area, looking for something.

  “I’m sorry,” said Alexa. “Your newspaper is where I left it, on the table over there.” She pointed. “I can see the white bag.” Rachel trotted over and Donny followed her.

  Not five seconds passed before Newcastle suddenly grabbed her and pulled her to the floor, him landing on top.

  “What are you doing?” she cried. “Get off me!”

  Newcastle flicked his eyes to the chair nearby and her nose registered a burning plastic smell. The chair sported a hole, an inch in diameter, angling from the back down through the seat. Heat radiated off it. On another chair right beside them, a tiny red light moved around on it a moment before it also developed a hole and the same smell.

  It took about half a minute for the people nearby to realize someone was shooting. No one was hit, except for another two chairs and a table, all in the vicinity of Alexa and Newcastle. The smell, and a chair spontaneously combusting, did it. Everyone scrambled.

  “See, I told you,” Newcastle said.

  He’d saved her, though his hands began doing an efficient job of pinning her down and searching all of her. Alexa stared him in the eyes. “Jerk.”

  Rachel was crying out, “Alexa? Are you okay? Alexa!”

  Donny bellowed at Rachel, “Stay down!”

  “Perhaps, but not on purpose,” Newcastle replied in her ear. His hand stopped over her heart, gently massaged and located the crystal. It was only a matter of time before he took it.

  Alexa looked away first. “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to hand it to me?” Again, they locked gazes.

  Alexa began wiggling and he looked at her like she’d lost her mind, until he realized she was trying to reach the pocket on her calf. It wasn’t easy with Newcastle remaining square on top of her, or possibly shielding her, hard to tell. She brought up a crystal and offered it on her flat palm.

  Newcastle momentarily appeared confused. “Ah.” He examined it closely. “I assume this is a fake, since I would not expect you to give in this easily.”

  Her smile at him was twisted.

  Newcastle’s eyebrows came together. “Why don’t you keep this one and give me the real one?”

  “Because I have a job to do.”

  He pressed his lips, reluctant.

  Alexa said, “All you need is something to satisfy a bunch of people who lost it a thousand years ago, probably because they misused it. Your family is doing fine. It doesn’t need the real one.”

  Newcastle took the decoy and turned it all around. “It could work.”

  Donny arrived, having pulled himself along the floor on his belly, intent as a marine. “Off,” he commanded. “Now.”

  “Not yet,” Newcastle murmured. “Not safe.”

  Whistles shrieked as the police entered the hall. Newcastle shifted, and stowed her gift in his pocket.

  “Sir Iain,” said a policeman, looming near them. “How is it you’re involved?”

  Newcastle climbed up and pointedly stared at the chair. As Rachel holding her bag came to stand by Donny, another policeman noted the chair’s condition, its position and the probable line of fire. Then he examined the other chairs and the table.

  “Perhaps an instance of over-active jealousy,” Newcastle replied, as he began dusting off his trouser legs. “It’s unfortunate this young woman was in the vicinity. I have time to go with you to file a report before I must join a business meeting. However, I believe this lady has a flight to catch. Might you let her go?”

  The officer seemed reluctant. “You don’t think she was involved?”

  “I assume I was the target. I can’t see how anyone would want to harm such a pretty lady, do you?”

  The policeman smiled tightly and said, “If this is happening in such a public place, I am nervous about you being exposed.”

  “We are meeting at Hotel Cairo,” explained Newcastle.

  The officer nodded, as if that made everything acceptable, then turned to his assistant. “Please escort this young woman to her flight.”

  Alexa had climbed up while Newcastle was speaking, trying to remain in his or someone else’s protective shadow. She turned to Donny and Rachel. “It appears these gentlemen have everything under control.”

  “I wish that were the case,” the policeman replied. “Times have changed here, lately. Have a good trip, Miss.”

  Soon the group stood in front of a wall of monitors, with Alexa staying close to the man’s protective body mass.

  “Madam, which is your flight? I should accompany you and return to my post.”

  “We can take it from here,” said Alexa.

  “My commanding officer would bust me if I did not make sure you arrived at your gate.”

  She searched her memory for details on the flight she’d booked for them. In reality, it was a day later. She settled on the one listed on the monitor to Earth leaving soonest. “This one. Where is it located?”

  “That gate is perhaps thirty minutes by tram.”

  Rachel put in, “Alexa, I think the lady changed our reservations to this one. Isn’t this flight right down this tube?”

  “It doesn’t leave for hours more.”

  “I know. We wanted to do some shopping,” said Alexa. “And Rachel wants to see if she can sell an antique.” Rachel looked confused. “Your newspaper.”

  Rachel mouthed, “oh,” and nodded.

  “Then,” said the young man, “may I escort you to the gate?”

  “Sure. Let’s all go.”

  In another five minutes, the policeman was happily returning to duty and the three of them sat at an empty gate that appeared relatively safe, as far as Alexa could tell. “I’m hungry.”

  “You’re kidding,” replied Rachel. “After everything that just happened?”

  “Being frisked, threatened with bodily violence, shot at, and groped, can make a girl want some comfort food.”

  “Who groped you?”

  “Newcastle. He was willing to accept my last decoy.”

  “He wanted the crystal, too?” Looked like Rachel couldn’t believe it.

  “His family,” said Alexa. “Now he has something that can make them happy.”

  They located a decent restaurant near their gate. Alexa was relishing the first bite of a crusty mac and cheese entree when a smooth, masculine voice intervened.

  “Well, hello” said Turner Bishop. “What a pleasure to see you again, under more congenial circumstances.”

  Chapter 33

  A little more than an hour later, at the intersection of several corridors in the middle of nowhere, Alexa whispered, “How did my life become some intense horror flick?”

  Not fifteen feet away, a hit man with less than a full-set of teeth was holding Donny by the hair on his head and aiming a god-forsaken ray gun at his private parts. Donny, though larger and probably stronger than the weasel, stood motionless. If the gun had been to his head, he might have struggled. But the man pegged Donny right when he took aim.

  Rachel exh
ibited a momentary instinct to attack, instead muttered “bastard,” and sprinted down the hallway behind Alexa.

  Alexa held her position, a wall and a corner away from the attacker and where Donny bravely stood. Everything except the man's face was hidden behind Donny or the corner. A third passage joined the scene between them. In all directions, no hint of humanity or robots. Their voices reverberated through the corridors.

  “What say, princess?” snaggletooth demanded. “The crystal? Or his balls.”

  Alexa barely restrained crying out, “Eeuuuww.” Instead, after a couple of beats she asked, “What crystal?”

  “Don’t get cute with me,” said the rat. “This guy will be singing in the high registers if you don’t hand it over.”

  No! She had to give credit to Donny. He didn’t start blubbering to her to hand over the blankety-blank piece of glass. “Listen, you’re late. Someone already took it from me.”

  “You go get it,” he snarled. “Of course, that gives me more time to make little changes to your friend.”

  “Detective Holmes-Fong is not far from here.”

  “He won't be able to help you,” replied pointy nose.

  Technically Edith and her husband probably were relatively close, though they’d begun strolling in the opposite direction from Alexa twenty minutes ago. That was after she parted from them outside the restaurant.

  * * *

  Edith and Ghengis had shown up at the restaurant after being pointed in the right direction by Rachel, who was out and about in the corridors because Bishop supplied the name of an antique store that would purchase her newspaper.

  Bishop had flashed one of his white toothy smiles and said to Rachel, “Tell the manager I sent you.”

  Minutes after Rachel and Donny left, with Alexa and Bishop almost alone in the restaurant, Bishop promised she would love the cocktail he’d ordered.

  Alexa was contemplating how angelic and earnest his face appeared when Edith poked her head in at the door of the restaurant and hailed with her usual high-pitched, “Yooh hooh.” In a flash, Bishop’s lips thinned.

  After a bit of coaxing from Alexa, and no assist from Bishop, Edith and her husband joined the table and ordered for themselves. During the meal, Bishop and Detective Holmes-Fong seemed overly polite to each other. To the point that she wasn’t surprised when Bishop excused himself and left.

  “Do the two of you know each other?” she asked the detective.

  In his upper crust accent, the short Chinese man with a huge gray mustache and blue eyes had replied cryptically, “We’ve almost interacted a suspicious number of times.”

  * * *

  Now she was in this corridor dealing with a sleaze bag. From the direction of Donny and no-teeth, Alexa heard a click. Perhaps the equivalent of pulling back the hammer of a Saturday-night special. “Hand it over, or he weeps,” the guy said, having heard far too many old holovids.

  Donny was nearly crying.

  “Wait,” urged Alexa. She eased her left hand into view, turning it so the back of the hand showed and wiggled it in the light. “Wouldn’t a diamond be easier for you to turn into cash?” Mac saved for a year to purchase the engagement ring.

  “I’m paid for the crystal, sweetheart. That or nothing.”

  A voice from behind needle-nose said, “I would take her offer if I were you.”

  The rat took the voice seriously. He yanked Donny around to cover him from that angle.

  The voice continued, “If I arrived to help, odds are others are on their way, too.”

  Alexa recognized the voice. Newcastle. Here? How?

  “Time to slink to your hole, Grunger,” said Newcastle.

  “This has nothing to do with you. And the name’s Granger.”

  Alexa risked a better peek, to find Newcastle bringing up a small laser. “I will not drill you this time Grunger, if you take her offer and let the man go. At once.”

  Alexa had wriggled the ring off her hand. She tossed it into the corridor across from them all. It bounced twice and then slid to a stop against a wall about twenty feet away. Forthwith, the scum wrenched Donny around, stepped both of them across to the intersecting hallway and whipped into cover around the corner. Next thing Alexa knew Donny was flailing back across the corridor, trying unsuccessfully to keep from landing on his face. Snake-nose must have scooped up the ring because all that remained was the echo of running steps. Rachel almost flew to Donny, cooing and smoothing.

  “Did he come near you?” Newcastle asked Alexa, as he walked up to her.

  Either she was in shock, or used to being attacked and threatened, or in denial. Whatever. She shook her head, already missing the connection to Mac through the ring. “I am not giving you the crystal,” she stated. “And if you try searching me again, I will—do something.”

  His effort to not smile at her lame threat was almost successful.

  “How is it you were here, or nearby,” insisted Alexa. “And why did what’s-his-name follow your instructions?”

  “Rachel found me.”

  “She knew where to find you, that quick?”

  Bullheaded, he retorted, “She pays attention and found me at the hotel. I have a shortcut this way to my office because I happen to know the area is free of the contagion that first got it quarantined. Most people won’t go near it and don’t want to deal with robots that traverse through it. Why were you here, besides rank ignorance?”

  Alexa knotted her brows. “What was the contagion? No, wait. Don’t tell me. I have enough going on.” She traced in her memory to why they came this direction. “Rachel was given directions to a shop here, by the store Bishop sent her to. They declined to buy her newspaper.”

  “Bishop! He found you again? Has he worked his magic yet?”

  Alexa issued a tolerating-type smile.

  “Which store?”

  Rachel and Donny appeared next to them together, two people moving as one. Rachel responded, “Sheffield’s.”

  “Bishop owns the store. If they sent you here, they were instructed to do so.” Newcastle turned to Alexa. “If you would give it to me, people would stop chasing you and pursue me instead.”

  “Nice try, but the thug wouldn’t take that excuse.”

  Chapter 34

  In the lull, Donny touched Alexa’s shoulder and whispered, “Thank you.”

  Alexa was saying, “I’m glad he accepted the exchange,” when a door in the distance squealed and clanged shut.

  Soon Pearson turned a corner far down the hallway, at an all-out run. The group watched as he barreled toward them and came to a smooth stop. Breathing hard. Alexa suppressed a smile. Nice touch.

  Pearson did a slight double take when he recognized Newcastle and said, with no inflection, “Newcastle.”

  Newcastle replied, “Pearson.”

  Then Pearson turned to Alexa. “My sources warn that the pirates are almost here. We have bare minutes to get away from the station before the authorities lock everything down.”

  Newcastle protested, “It takes awhile to warm up any craft before taking off. Even one of your freighters, Pearson, as good as they are.”

  “We have been preparing for this,” Pearson replied.

  Everyone turned to Alexa. Did she need to debate? “Okay. Let’s go.” In the moments before they all took off, Alexa sensed Newcastle’s discomfort. She turned to him. “What will you do?”

  He stuck out his chin. “Fight the good fight.” After glancing at Pearson, he said to Alexa, “You should leave though.”

  Before she turned the first corner, Alexa looked back. Newcastle continued to stand there, watching them.

  Soon the group erupted through a set of double doors into a large common area that Alexa hadn’t seen before. They slowed to a walk through what would have been considered a town square on Earth. Since Pearson kept to merely a brisk pace, Alexa forced herself to not run.

  Adults and children sat at tables, a group of elderly lounged in a garden area, and travelers moved alon
g to their flights. Each person blissfully unaware of the danger approaching. A sunbeam shone through a window, evoking in her an intense desire to sit with one of those groups and pretend all the danger was an illusion; that reality was simple living.

  Rachel stopped in front of a bank of monitors. “Wow, look at that.”

  The name Lord Corcoran Esteban DeSoto FitzDermot Espinoza blinked in six-inch letters. “Today, found dead, of an apparent brain hemorrhage, at the age of 32,” the talking head intoned. Alexa and Rachel glanced at each other in disbelief. The newscaster continued, “A recently discharged laser was fou—”

  A blaring siren drowned out the rest of the newscast. People jumped and searched around, wondering about the earsplitting beats.

  An official provided explanation over a loudspeaker. “Attention, attention. It is highly probable we will be under attack soon. Please rapidly proceed to your security areas. Volunteer response squads, report immediately to your stations. This is not a test. Repeat. This is not a test.” Shock registered on each face Alexa took time to see. No fear, however. Instead, everyone quickly collected his or her belongings and children, while able-bodied men and women transported those requiring assistance.

  Across the common area, Turner Bishop banged through a set of doors, similar to how they had a moment earlier. Except, trailing after him was an entourage of overly able-bodied men, more big and bulky than would be required at any time.

  Alexa caught Pearson’s sleeve, jerked her head at Bishop’s group, and swerved away from where their paths would intersect. Pearson, as fast as ever in comprehension, took a rabbit-quick maneuver to a side door. “Rachel, Donny, this way,” she yelled. Before she raced through the door, Alexa took one more look at Bishop. The angelic face he wore during their meal was replaced with something mean and ugly, and disturbingly familiar.

  The hallways all looked the same. She called out, “Pearson, do you have a map of the station?” He kept on, seeming to know where he was going. Three doorways and two longish corridors later, he brought them out onto a flight deck that was totally utilitarian, no trappings to cater to tourists.