In Dark Service

by Stephen Hunt

  She nodded, then swivelled and a shot exploded from her pistol as she put a bullet through the downed officer’s forehead. So much for taking him alive.

  Blood, brown and dark, pooled towards Helrena’s boots as she turned back towards Duncan and Owen. ‘I already know who’s behind this outrage. That bitch Circae and the families that support her. Anybody else trying to assassinate me would have left Cassandra to die in the station alongside me.’

  ‘They didn’t touch the turncoats’ guns,’ lied Owen. ‘Look at the rents in their breastplates. Blasting cap damage. And this pair saved your house’s heir.’

  ‘And every slave in the sky mine. Which was, I suspect, far more the point of their desperate assault?’ She went across to where her men were gently placing Lady Cassandra in a stretcher, examining the young girl before having a terse conversation with the men. Helrena walked back to Duncan and Owen. ‘If she was hurt, I would have had ordered every worker in this mine pushed into the sky.’

  ‘But she’s fine,’ said Owen.

  ‘Yes, she is.’ Helrena waved her pistol down at Duncan. ‘You shall live. It’s far too expensive replacing slaves, these days.’

  ‘I’d live better with the woman I love returned by my side.’

  The princess snorted. ‘I am a royal of the upper-celestial caste, troublemaker… a daughter of the imperial emperor; do you mistake me for a village matchmaker?’

  ‘Adella Cheyenne,’ continued Duncan. ‘She was taken off the station by Baron Machus.’

  Princess Helrena shook her head. ‘Then she is far beyond my gift. The baron is an ally. I would not offend him by asking for the return of one of his new house-slaves.’

  Duncan tried to protest, but the princess raised a hand. ‘You know nothing of life beyond the sky mines. If you did, you would never request anyone you cared for to be returned to labour up here. Or are you so arrogant to think that your woman would prefer to live a short and brutish existence in the name of “true love”, even inside the sky mines?’

  ‘I would,’ said Duncan. ‘If it were me.’

  ‘But it is not you we speak of. It is a woman you supposedly care for. Ask me again to return her here.’

  ‘Then promise me she will have a good life,’ begged Duncan, his heart torn by indecision.

  She merely smiled, and shook her head. ‘Promise me that I will have a good life. Promise my daughter the same. You know nothing of the empire.’

  Duncan could barely stop himself from weeping. ‘I can’t live without her.’

  ‘Love is the greatest enemy of all,’ said the princess. ‘Because sometimes we will let it murder us without even putting up a struggle. Just ask Cassandra’s poor father. Yes, you can live for now, slave, even as we drag these traitorous dogs’ corpses away. I don’t think I can spare you punishment for saving my little girl’s life, though. That isn’t in my gift, either.’

  Owen helped Duncan to his feet as their mistress left with her child and guards. ‘The gratitude of emperors and empresses is a thin soup to sup from.’

  ‘She’s just a princess, not an empress.’

  ‘Oh, she’s getting there,’ said Owen. ‘I have high hopes for that woman.’

  Duncan felt dizzy on his feet. Not as wobbly as Carter Carnehan would when he woke up. Not half as much as the reckless fool deserved to, for gambling with the life of every prisoner on the station. ‘Reckon if Helrena wins the imperial throne, she’ll celebrate by setting us all free? That’s the sort of thing nobles are meant to do when they take to a throne, isn’t it? Open the gates to all of the prisons and give everyone a free pass?’

  Owen shrugged. ‘Maybe an ounce of barley extra for the gruel pot, every day for a week.’

  It isn’t much to stay alive for. But at least Duncan was alive to regret how little he had been left with.

  There were four slaves in as accomplices on Carter’s scheme. Eshean and Joah from back home – those two he knew he could trust with his back. Their transporter pilot was Alan Ferris, a Weyland man, too – an easterner from the same raid that had taken Anna and Owen. The one he’d taken the biggest risk with was Deeli Baigent, a rake-thin old hand who had only survived so long by working in the clerks’ office, making sure that every tonne of ore was accounted for without anything of value being ‘mislaid’ by the Vandian transport crews who shipped the sky mine’s bounty out. There wasn’t much Deeli couldn’t hustle on the station, from extra rations to fixing the slave duty rotas, and it had been the latter which Carter needed to manipulate to make his escape plan work. Carter wished there had been more people from Northhaven he could have trusted, but Duncan’s cowardice in the hangar had opened his eyes to how far old loyalties could be trusted when things got tight in a hurry. If it wasn’t for that yellow idiot, everyone here could have marched off the station onto Helrena Skar’s battleship for a first-class ticket home. Helrena’s girl first, with a gun barrel in her ear. Much good had Duncan’s spinelessness done him. He’d heard from Owen how Helrena had refused to return Adella to the station, despite the two Weylanders foiling the noblewoman’s assassination and preventing her daughter’s kidnap. Trusting a Vandian to do the right thing was like trusting a viper not to bite you just because you’d avoiding stamping on it. Poor Duncan Landor. Looking to flee his fate back home because he couldn’t stomach his responsibilities. Frozen with fear in the sky mines like a rabbit transfixed by a hawk’s shadow – not even able to run! Well, there was no point in brooding over lost opportunities. You made your own luck in the sky mines, and Carter was about to set up a factory line to produce chances to get out of here for him and his gang of like-minded accomplices. Pity Willow came from Duncan’s blood. The young woman shared her brother’s defeatist attitude, taking every opportunity to try to badger Carter into thinking this was no time to do anything as precipitate as jumping ship. If he could have taken Willow along, his breakout might have felt a little less like abandoning everyone else to a bad fate. It’s not actually her I’m worrying about, is it? But Willow had made it clear where she stood. If Willow loved labouring inside the sky mines so much, she would have to stick with it. Maybe he could have bound and gagged Willow… kidnapped the irritating woman. But escaping the imperium was going to be difficult enough for those actually willing to put their necks on the line to risk it. Carter had also tried to sound out Anna about getting off the station as well, but the transporter pilot seemed reticent to abandon Owen, who wasn’t minded to leave unless every Weyland soul was given the same chance, so Anna would have to take her chances up here too, and damn the promise Carter had made to Anna’s brother back on the skel aircraft. Kerge’s dire warnings crossed Carter’s mind, too, but Carter forced the gask’s concerns out of head. The twisted man had said it himself: no fate but that made by will; and if there was one thing that people agreed about when discussing Carter Carnehan, it was that here walked a strong-willed man.

  ‘It’s taking too long,’ said Deeli, glancing nervously around the refectory hall. ‘They should have called for us by now.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Carter, reaching across the table to tug at the man’s sleeve. ‘You fixed the rotas. All of us are off-shift and top of the list for the summons.’

  ‘What if something goes wrong, man?’

  ‘I’ve evened the odds a little,’ said Carter, sharing a knowing glance with the four men. He held up a postage stamp-sized sackcloth bag, empty and coated with a black dusting. ‘There was blasting powder mixed in with the pilots’ tea today, as well as nettles! There isn’t a transporter flyer in the station that won’t be clutching their stomach and bringing up the contents of their dinner.’

  ‘What if the stratovolcano doesn’t blow?’

  ‘You’ve heard the tremors down there,’ said Joah, pushing his cheap spectacles up the bridge of his nose. ‘The shocks started to arrive within an hour of when Carter predicted they would.’

  ‘Well,’ said Eshean. ‘It was following you out from behind the safety of the town’s wall
s that got me and Noah into this plight. The way I see it, the least you can do is lead us out of here.’

  ‘Sounds like a huge eruption coming,’ said Alan Ferris, the transport pilot’s fingers drumming the surface of the table. ‘I don’t know where you’ve been getting your forecasts from, Northhaven, but that sounds like a big one, all right. I’ve flown enough sensor check runs to recognise the signs. There’s not an insect in the sky.’

  ‘What if the princess decides that one sky mine is enough?’ whined Deeli. ‘We’ve hardly bored into the rock tied up against the station?’

  Alan Ferris snorted. ‘You mean what if the ethreaal have been visiting the mistress at night and whispering that the lives of her slaves are worth something more than being worked to death, and God says she shouldn’t get greedy for a second stake? How much is enough for the Vandians, you old fool? You’ve been here long enough to know we’ll be risking our necks beating some other idiot to death over a floating chunk of ore soon enough.’

  Carter tempered his own frayed nerves. He felt like grabbing the old hand and shaking him until he shut up about how many damn ways there were for this scheme to fail. Instead, Carter just poured the clerk another tepid glass of water from the pottery jug sitting in front of them. ‘Drink that down and grab yourself hard. Way you’ve been coughing, you’re not going to last too many more seasons up here as it is.’

  ‘You think I don’t know that, man? I’ve been here the longest of anyone. But there are worse things than dying of tunnel lung. Torture’s a high craft to the Vandians, and they reserve their top artists for slaves who need to be made an example of – to stop the lower castes getting ideas above their station.’

  ‘Cheer up,’ said Carter, forcing a smile. ‘We’re all going to be dead, soon. And a dead slave is worth nothing, not even searching for.’ The hard part, Carter reckoned, would be dying without getting killed.

  A slave entered looking for Alan Ferris. Finding the pilot, the slave passed across a sheet with duty orders and a team roster scrawled across it. ‘You’re up.’

  Alan managed to look convincingly annoyed at being interrupted while eating. ‘Already?’

  ‘Sensor line needs to be checked.’

  Alan grunted. ‘I can tell you a large blow-out’s coming soon. Don’t need seismic readouts to back up what a man’s nose can tell him.’

  ‘Sadly,’ said the slave, ‘Thomas Gale likes to have a little more than your snozzle to go on when ordering down-tools for everyone and hitters into the hangar. Gather your crew, get into the stink and bring us up some good news.’

  ‘The good news,’ said Alan, carefully watching the messenger depart the refectory, ‘is that the team for the sensor line recovery is already sitting around this table.’ He turned the sheet of paper about so they could read it.

  ‘That’s lucky for us,’ said Carter. ‘And I bet your transporter’s been stuffed with extra water canteens and respirator cylinders, too.’ He looked at Deeli.

  ‘What, I should want to suffocate or die of dehydration? It’s taken care of, man.’

  ‘Then let’s get out of here,’ said Carter. ‘There are readouts to be retrieved. And that’s a mighty dangerous job.’

  ‘That’s real sweet,’ said Alan Ferris, pulling camouflage netting over their grounded transporter. He clung tight to the craft’s side, tremors across the land shaking the transporter like a baby’s metal rattle. ‘Not many hitters in the air now. Ours or the other houses’ birds.’ They had landed the transporter exactly where Carter had planned – in front of the standing circle near the stratovolcano’s base. No sensor spikes driven in the ground here. Not now the enemy houses knew it was one of their spots. Hopefully that meant the area would be low down on the list of places to look for the party after it was posted missing.

  Carter pulled his survival suit on along with the others in the gang. On the outside the fabric was a shiny foil-like metal, thin enough to crumple and fold. Inside, it was padded with a thin layer that moved like gel when you pressed a finger against it, trying to shift out of the way as though it was alive. Weirdest suit I’m ever going to wear. Maybe it’s not a fire suit today, but an escape suit. Carter left his hood down for the moment, his respirator mask dangling from straps around his neck. He didn’t feel safe wearing the suit. Certainly not protected enough to escape a full eruption from Old Smoky. Its slopes loomed above them as if they could use the volcano to climb into the sky. Thankfully, Carter had other ideas for getting out of here.

  Eshean, Noah and the dockets man, Deeli, had formed a human chain, passing supplies towards the cave; sufficient air, water and food to last them as long as this might take. Their rations had been pilfered slowly and carefully; nothing that would lead the Vandians or their slave overseers to suspect an escape attempt had been made, even when they got around to taking a tally of station supplies. Carter had been champing at the bit to launch this escape, but he knew they were only going to get one shot at breaking loose, so he’d bitten his tongue, slowed down and taken the time to prepare for the task properly. Ejecta mass pattered around his sandals, a shower of ash and burning pebbles whistling down fast on streaking smoke-tails. There were still a few kinks that could derail Carter’s plans; like a landslide hitting their transporter, magma flows burying it, or a direct hit from ejecta mass large enough to damage the craft beyond repair. But hell, if that happened they could just sit down and wait for rescue like good little slaves who had been planning to go back to the station all along. Just riding out the eruption, Mister Gale. Bad luck to be caught short by it. Sweet God, but it felt good to be doing something on his own account. Acting as a free man at last. Fear he might be caught mixed with exhilaration; a heady cocktail that left Carter shivering to hold himself together.

  He ducked under the cave entrance, activating a battery lamp and swinging it around. The grotto went back fifteen feet inside, a rough, spherical space, its ground uneven and rocky. Not easy to sit on, but they would have to make the best of it. This was where Carter planned to hole up as the stratovolcano blasted its fury at the sky. He’d be helped by the short, narrow entrance. That’d protect the party from the worst of the eruption’s ferocity. Fumes drifting out of cracks in the stone floor were less helpful, but they had brought spare air canisters for their masks. The men dragged their supplies inside the cave, and then walked back to the transporter to help Alan peg down the camouflage netting. The rock-patterned meshwork needed to remain intact enough to escape detection by the princess’s rivals. Sure would be ironic. Getting our heads broken by slaves from another station; murdered for a mistress we’re no longer serving. Just another thing that could go wrong with his scheme.

  Rock fall had grown worse by the time they finished and were all squeezed into a tight circle within the cave. His body started to ache, and not just from nerves, the uncomfortable seat or the work of stocking this cavity in the volcano’s slopes. Carter realised this was the longest period of time he’d spent on the ground since he had been taken by the skels. His body had acclimatised to the weak high-altitude gravity of the station and the sky mine tethered to it.

  ‘What if there’s a rock slide?’ moaned Deeli. ‘We could die trapped in here.’

  ‘I don’t think this area sees too much spew,’ said Carter. ‘Look at the standing stones outside. They’ve been here forever and they’re still intact. A little magma flow solidified around their base, but that’s it. We’re too far down – and the blast is going up and out. The height of that monster outside is going to protect us’

  ‘You’ve got a fine brain inside that ornery skull of yours,’ said Noah.

  ‘Just don’t tell anyone,’ said Carter. ‘I’ve a reputation to keep.’

  ‘How about you let us in on the second part of your scheme, professor,’ demanded Alan. ‘Hiding out here and getting posted missing, presumed dead. Anyone could arrange that. But escaping across the dead zone is a whole other thing. Even with the extra fuel we’ve stolen, we’re not going to be a
ble to cross more than a quarter of the dead zone. The Vandians have dirt miners out there, scrabbling around for rock-fall the major houses don’t catch. When we run, we’re going to have an escaped slave’s price on our head and not enough water in our canteens to complete a fraction of the journey, and that’s if we don’t get spotted by Vandian ships sweeping for mineral poachers.’

  ‘Maybe you should just trust me.’

  ‘And maybe you should just tell me – so I don’t start thinking that you’ve lied about how you’ve got a fool-proof way of escaping; say, to string me and the boys along. I’m not aiming to play possum on the ground, so you can try to jump a company of heavily-armed Vandian guardsmen, hijack their patrol ship, and hope I can fly it.’

  ‘I said I had a scheme for an escape,’ said Carter, ‘not a suicide.’

  ‘We’re trusting you, here,’ said Noah. ‘I think it’s time you started trusting us back.’

  ‘Okay then,’ sighed Carter. ‘We ride out the worst of the eruption down here. What’s going to happen back on the station when it stops?’

  ‘Same as always,’ said Eshean. ‘Scouts out as soon as it’s half-safe to fly, all the men loaded into transporters. Everyone looking for the biggest claim with the best mix of ores. A bloody battle between the houses, and the lucky ones head back to the station with a fresh claim to tie-up.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Carter. ‘Too busy to search for us until the dust’s settled. And by then we won’t be here. We won’t wait until it’s half-safe to fly, we’ll light out of here when it’s quarter-safe to fly, and follow the ejecta-mass straight up.’

  Eshean laughed. ‘Are you planning to stake an early claim for the princess? Hell, you saved her brat’s life and she never freed you. What’s raising a flag on a chunk of gold-veined rock going to buy you?’

  ‘Gold, no,’ said Carter. ‘I’m planning to stake a claim to the least viable rock we can find… small, basalt, empty and useless. Not enough metal in it to make a wedding ring if you broke the whole thing down and ground it into dust. Just large enough to land a transporter on it. Maybe a nice hollow on its roof we can cover over with camouflage netting. And what would happen to that rock?’