Eye of the Colossus

by Nicole Grotepas

  “What did you do?”

  “The job? Oh, uh, we stole an antique orrery. You know those things? It was one of the first. Then we sold it for three hundred thousand marks on the black market. To some HoloR game designer. He wanted us to get him other pieces, but I was out already. Shiro might have done more.”

  “How many people were on the team?”

  “Just the three of us. Shiro, me, and the getaway driver.”

  “So you know a getaway driver?”

  “Sort of. I haven’t talked to her in a while.”

  “A girl?”

  “Yeah, she hooked up with Shiro for a bit. They did jobs together and slept together.”

  “Wow, Shiro. Not surprised. He’s too sleek to not be with someone.”

  Charly laughed. “He actually moves through them pretty quick. I was even once his main entree.”

  “No way? And gross. You’re referring to yourself in culinary terms. I don’t see it. It’s not you, Charly. You’re too classy for that.”

  “Am I? My word choice says otherwise. But yes. Shiro and I. Once upon a time. It only lasted like a month.”

  “What happened?”

  “Shiro’s just better not tied down. And there is the fact that he doesn’t want to be. So he needs his time together with someone short, so that he can leave, go do some con work, cat burgle for small prizes to pay the bills, etc. He’s best as a friend. A best friend even. Just not as a boyfriend. Please don’t tell me you’ve got a thing for Shiro, Holly.” Charly held up her crossed fingers as she said it.

  “God no,” Holly said with a scowl. “He drives me crazy.”

  “In a good way, or a bad way?” Charly began to chant “bad way, bad way.”

  “Bad way, of course.”

  Over her earpiece, Holly heard Odeon and Darius begin to talk, and then she heard Beatrice’s voice.

  “Oh hang on, Darius and Odeon have made it to Sveldt Encounters.”

  “I got to run anyway. I told Torden I’d only be a minute.”

  “Put your earpiece in, that’s all I ask. If we’re going to do this, we need to work like a team,” Holly said, watching her friend leave the room.

  Charly pretended to shoot her and blow the tip of her finger like she was getting rid of the smokey charge that came off an aether gun. “Obviously, sister. I’m totally putting it in.”

  Holly listened to Darius explain what they needed. Beatrice asked questions, all of which Darius answered. In her deep voice, the madame explained that no, she had nothing in stock for that lock. It’s new, and it’s secure. However there is something, a tool that can make it possible to pause the security long enough to hear the tumblers in a classic safecracking technique.

  “Let me see if I can get one in,” Beatrice said. Holly imagined the madame looking through her inventory or online market. “Yes. I can get one in. But it’ll be almost two weeks before that happens.”

  Two weeks?

  “Two weeks,” Darius echoed Holly’s thoughts. “We can’t wait that long. Maybe, maybe there’s another way. Maybe the windows.”

  “Let me see what I have for those windows,” Beatrice said. “Hmm, again, these aren’t standard issue windows. They’re new and highly secure. Shatter proof. Centau tech. They think humans will break in, I suppose. And they’re right. We will.” She laughed.

  “So? Can you get something?” Odeon asked. “Apologies. We just don’t have time.”

  “Let me see,” Beatrice said. “Same thing. Only this will take four weeks.”

  “Christ,” Darius said.

  “Amen,” Beatrice said.

  “How far away is the one for the safe locks?”

  “Its currently with another owner on Itzcap.”

  “Another owner?”

  “Yes, well, you see, only a few exist. And this one would need to be procured by a shall we say, dedicated courier. Then I could sell it to you.”

  “We’ll just go after it ourselves. We don’t have time to wait, sorry Bea.” Darius said. “Give me the details. Drake is this alright with you? I’m making the executive decision to go after the tool. If you’re against it, speak up.”

  Holly wanted to sigh, but knew the team would hear her. She needed to be a leader. “It’s our best option. Get the details from the Madame and we’ll go after it.”

  “Sure thing,” Darius said.

  Shit. This was taking forever. How many days did she have left? Leaving to go after it needed to be quick.

  She went to Darius’s computer and pulled up a flight schedule and ticketing information.

  There was a ship leaving soon. The Emerald Pioneer, it was docked and was set to leave the space platform that night. Their only choice was to have a team on it. The flight would take 7 hours, plus she was factoring in a full day, possibly more, to procure the item, and who knew what that would entail. Maybe they’d get lucky and it would just be sitting on a shelf in some shop. All they’d need to do would be to walk by and casually grab it.

  TWENTY-SIX

  THE dock out to the space platform was crowded. The four races mingled here as one, almost, with the Centau looking down their noses at the others. Centau as a rule were tall—of course, there were exceptions. But generally they were no shorter than six and a half feet, though they could reach up to eight feet. They moved slow and stately, their soft brown skin glittering like it was made from the same material as granite. Holly had seen some Centau as dark as chocolate and as pale as amber, but generally, the race ran right down the middle of those two extremes. And they were inordinately fond of draping themselves in white robes. Again, she’d seen some that wore attire similar to the Human, Constie, and Druiviin costume, but they were the outliers.

  The most offensive thing that the Centau did was act like they were better than everyone else. They were, probably. But it was a sore spot with just about every Human or Constellation that the Centau had to act that way. If you were such an amazing individual, didn’t that also have to do with how you treated everyone else? There was nothing special about being special. What mattered was how well you treated everyone around you, at least, that was what Holly had tried to teach her students back before her life fell apart.

  Thinking about the Centau just made her annoyed. So she focused on pushing through the crowds on the dock, trying to get to a pod so that they could get up to the space platform before their flight left.

  It did make her laugh secretly that the Centau had to ride the same pods that humans rode. They thought they were so goddamn special. But to a human, a Centau smelled exactly like chowder. It was not a laughing matter. Being stuck in a pod with a Centau was going to suck, because of the chowder smell—something to do with their diet.

  “What?” Odeon asked from his position beside her, as he too pushed through the crowd.

  “Nothing.”

  “You muttered something. I heard it.”

  “Over this racket?”

  “I heard it too, good lady,” Shiro said from her other side. He used his cane like a walking stick, pushing it out in front of him to clear his way. Over his shoulder he carried a posh, black overnight bag. Holly had her own bag strapped to her back so her arms were free, and Odeon carried nothing—his parents lived on Itzcap. If he needed anything he’d bother them, apparently.

  “I was just wondering if humans stink to Centau, the way Centau smell weird to us,” Holly said, scanning the crowd, concerned that this would be a perfect opportunity for Shadow Coalition members to rob them or something worse. “And Odeon, can’t you do something? Some magic? Get this crowd out of my goddamn way?”

  “I’m afraid not, Holly. There is no quicker way to get to our pod than through the crowd. Oh and humans smell like cotton candy to the Yasao,” Odeon said.

  “I’ve never heard that,” Holly said, distractedly.

  “Have you had many Yasao friends?”

  “One. As a child. And then one who I was very close with as an adult.”

  “Very close to?�
� Shiro asked, a teasing tone in his voice.

  There were hissing noises as five or six pods shot up into the sky overhead. Holly glanced up at the large hole in the dome of the dock where the pods went. Above them, Ixion shown down like an orange and yellow eye. Far up in the sky, the bright white pods vanished as they rose into the distant atmosphere.

  “We need to catch the next round. Our ship leaves soon. And our damn tickets are for the furthest pod on the dock. Get going!” Holly urged them.

  Shiro increased his pace, pushing against the mad crowd of people, violet Druiviins, pale white Consties, and the myriad of colors that humans came in.

  Out of nowhere, Odeon made a loud booming noise with his voice. The crowd hissed and crouched as though under attack, everyone reaching up to plug their ears. Both Holly and Shiro had instinctively done the same thing. Odeon grabbed both of their arms and pulled them along with him as he rushed through the now stationary crowd.

  “What the fuck, Odeon?” Holly breathed.

  “Yes, what was that?” Shiro echoed.

  Holly’s ears were ringing as she walked, dodging between people that had begun to move again. Children screamed and laughed, clinging to the legs of their parents. A hodgepodge of smells baked above the crowd—the room was rather hot from the machinery that powered the pods—food odors, sweat, and sickly sweet perfumes. Holly found herself mentally pleading with the gods that their pod didn’t reek like the dock did.

  “It’s a sound I can make if I want to,” Odeon said. “A defensive sound. Other Druiviins would hear it as a call to arms.”

  Holly glanced around, noticing that the other Druiviins in the area were searching the crowd warily, their pale eyes on high alert.

  “What if they’d started attacking?” Holly asked, surprised.

  “They wouldn’t. Druiviins haven’t had to fight for hundreds of years. It’s all but been bred out of us. But there are latent instincts that it gives rise to. Many Druiviins would just run, rather than fight. That is, if they could run. I strongly doubt they’d be able to in this cramped space.”

  Finally they reached their pod, just as the doors were hissing shut. Shiro shoved his cane between the sliding doors and then pried them open.

  “Sorry gents, ladies, but we’re on this one,” he announced, getting himself inside and turned to help Holly and Odeon on by holding the doors open. Holly got inside, sank into an empty seat, slipped her back pack off, quickly strapped in, and exhaled. She held her bag in her lap and secured it with a tether to her seat restraints. Odeon sat on her right and Shiro took the seat on her left. Shiro attached his pretty bag in the same way and then relaxed against his seat.

  “That was close,” Shiro said. “Thanks to Odeon, we made it. Well done, man.”

  “Let’s hope that’s the closest call we have on this little journey,” Odeon said.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  HOLLY had only ridden an inter-moon airship twice, one time as a child and the other time as an adult when she went on a honeymoon with Graf.

  Forty five minutes later, they disembarked their pod. Five tethered ships loomed around the massive platform. In the middle of the platform there was a hotel, and in front of it and along the causeway, shops clustered beneath vast colorful tents, busy and overflowing with customers waiting for their connecting flights. Holly paused as she neared the edge of the plank and other pod passengers pushed around them, bumping into her back and jostling her.

  “Jesus,” she muttered. She felt the gun in her back every time someone bumped into her. At least she had it—not that she wanted to use it. She still hadn’t had a chance to practice with it yet. With any luck the trip would be so uneventful, she’d forget the damn thing even existed.

  “Oh thank Buddha,” Shiro said. “The ship hasn’t left yet. Let’s grab something on the causeway and head over.”

  “Something?” Holly asked.

  “They have food on the ship,” Odeon said.

  “Can we call it that?” Shiro said. “I’d say it was more like feed. There’s feed for the hogs on the ship.”

  “I’m with Odeon. We don’t want to miss the departure. If we do, the next one doesn’t leave for three hours.”

  “But they have ramen here,” Shiro said.

  “Let’s go.” Holly led the way through the crowded causeway to the gate for their ship, the Emerald Pioneer.

  “Holly? Ramen,” Shiro repeated as he fell into step with her.

  “Sure, go have ramen. We’re leaving. If you miss the ship, that’s on you.”

  He snorted and spun his cane and kept in pace with her. “Dastardly woman,” he muttered.

  Normally she would have stopped to challenge him to a duel to fight for her own goddamn honor—he would have loved a duel—but there was no time. Besides, there were worse things than being dastardly. Or a woman.

  The crowds here were almost as thick as the dock back on Kota, which wasn’t a huge surprise. But boarding had already begun and one ship was beginning to disembark, so the horde was slightly thinner than she would have expected.

  The platform was an enormous disc that always stayed in the same place where it balanced between Kota and Ixion. Some part of the disc beneath their feet spun to create gravity—some principal neither Holly, Odeon, nor Shiro understood, and didn’t care too much to, as long as it worked, they were happy—and was protected from radiation and dust and debris. There was a slight vibration in the floor as their feet clicked across the metal, carrying them toward their ship. The dome overhead let in light and the view of the gas giant, now closer than ever. Without the atmosphere of Kota to filter the appearance of the planet, it was more vibrant and intimidating than ever. As they approached their gate, the three of them passed another gate where, just outside the protective dome, they could see it unmooring and departing. The way the Centau had set up inter-moon travel seemed impossible. It should have been impossible, according to all the laws humans had uncovered and adhered to.

  But the Centau made it happen. And it was fantastic.

  If a bit scary.

  Through the clear dome Holly watched a ship leaving. As it got further away from the platform, its sails unfurled and its speed increased as it caught the waves of radiation and used them as propulsion. Unfiltered sunlight glinted off the ship’s metallic hull shaped like a zeppelin from old Earth. Most of the ship was sail. It followed an unseen tether that pulled it along a designated flight path where the Centau had managed to direct the majority of the streams of aether and wind from Ixion and the sun.

  Holly stared out at it, and then felt fingers in her hand. She turned and realized she’d come to a stop and that Odeon was pulling her along with him.

  “Nervous?” he asked, his bright eyes searching her face.

  She laughed to diffuse the ball of anxious energy in her gut. “Never.”

  “Almost there, Ms. Drake,” Shiro said, swaggering into her path to lead them. He put his cane over his shoulder and held his bag out in front of him to part the crowd going in the opposite direction.

  Odeon still held her hand. His long fingers were reassuring, but the slightest touch was all she’d needed to regain her senses. She gently shook his grip loose, and flashed him a smile when he gave her a sidelong glance.

  “I’m fine, really,” she said.

  Finally they were at the gate. The Emerald Pioneer was like its namesake—a dark green hull glittered outside the protective dome, connecting into it with a reinforced tunnel. People were already loading. They were the wealthy crowd—a lot of Centau and a few humans, dressed sharply in travel attire. Some of the women carried little parasols and wore frilly dresses, while the men wore hats, dress shirts, and vests. The Centau—who were supposedly going on vacation—looked anything but relaxed. Probably due to having to mingle with the humans.

  Holly announced their party to the gate attendant and the three of them were invited to board.

  “There is a full accommodation in your suite and a bar and restaurant a
t the center of the hull. Please enjoy your trip,” the woman said, gesturing with her gloved hand to the open causeway door.

  They went in, battled through the thick of the other passengers and found their cabin, which was sealed off with a sliding door. There were four bunk beds, a plush rug, and a curtain that could be drawn over the half-windows of the walls separating them from the corridor. Everything was bolted to the ground though the ship had its own gravity. Inside, Holly stowed her bag on a bunk and sat down. She didn’t want Shiro to see her nervous about the journey. Odeon had already guessed, but there was still a chance it hadn’t occurred to her other traveling companion, who she took for self-centered so far.

  “You guys make it?” Darius asked over the comms. His voice was sharp and clear.

  Before Holly or Odeon could say anything, Shiro chimed in from where he was in the small bathroom that serviced their cabin. “Righto lad, we’re boarded. Odeon is a lovely shade of violet like always, and Ms. Drake has gone green in an effort to found a new race. I’m the same soft brown I’ve always been, if this mirror in our tiny water closet is any indication.”

  Odeon laughed. He’d sat down on the bottom bunk opposite Holly where he was watching her with curiosity in his eyes. He rose and went to the large exterior window. It was that sight that had Holly anxious, and seeing Odeon so close to it made something sick slip through her stomach like an eel. She lowered her eyes to the rug-covered floor. Indeed, intermoon travel was a luxury, but it was one Holly could live without. If she could focus on something else, perhaps on how goddamn clever the Centau were, despite their insufferable pomposity. Their conceited nature—though irritating, was well-founded. They were like gods walking among mortals. Their vast intellect allowed them to tame the wilds of space. Yes, there were space monsters that fed on the plasma and aether outside the closed atmospheres of planets, but the Centau had put up a sort of electrical fence that protected the 6-moons. Other than that, the only thing to fear was the vacuum out there that would tear apart a frail mortal should anything happen to their ship, the Emerald Pioneer.