by J. S. Morin
“Bugged…” Carl echoed. He spread his hands, wondering who in their right mind would bother planting listening devices in a room that, by his guess, must have cost under ten terras a day.
“You’re certifiable,” July said. She leaned over and opened the door of the mini-fridge and grabbed a Zilch Power Water. After taking a long drink from it, she continued. “You might as well have put a contract out on yourself. You’re the front-runner by kilometers, and front-runners don’t win contests like this.”
Carl snickered as he stepped past her and took a look in the fridge for himself. There was nothing in there with alcohol in it. There wasn’t even anything that might ferment if stored for too long. Healthy. Flavorless. Performance-boosting. This wasn’t what Carl liked to find in a fridge. He gave up and closed the door. “So I’m a ringer. Big deal. Stacy practically runs this thing, and she was giddy. I’m not worried about those posers outflying me—no offense.”
“You don’t get it,” July said. “This isn’t a racing contest. It’s a racing show. No one wants to watch some navy fighter-jock lap the field. Boring holo doesn’t get ratings.”
“I’m fascinating,” Carl deadpanned.
“Sell that bullshit somewhere else,” July said. “The hair dye, the cockamamie military record, playing up the hangover—people are going to see right through all that.”
“But my hair was cursed by an azrin sword master,” Carl protested.
“Suuuure it was.”
“And my military record is classified.”
“Which could mean you’re a war criminal with political connections for all anyone knows.”
“I’m still hung over.”
“Yeah, like I’m going to believe you drank all night and didn’t take a Bright Eye before flying,” July said.
“That shit’s like five terras a pill. I’d be broke if I got hooked on that stuff.”
“They’re going to make sure you don’t run away with this,” July said. “Every pilot’s going to be trying to run you into an asteroid. The execs from the UltraVelo network are going to want ratings, and the Silde Slim people are going to do whatever it takes to keep you from winning. If you win, this is the last run for the Silde Slims Cadet Racer Challenge. No one’s going to watch a feed after they see a wire-to-wire winner. What’s the point?”
“So…” Carl didn’t see this going anywhere useful. Either he was a better flyer than everyone Silde Slims could put up against him, or he wasn’t. Rules had never been much of an impediment for him.
“So, if you want to have a chance, you’re going to kill off the idea that you’re a gruff, arrogant, unbeatable former covert navy operative who’s just here to toy with us dreamers who stand no chance.”
“So, lie or lose?”
“Something like that,” July replied with a smirk. Was it just Carl’s imagination, or did she not believe him?
“Why would you help me? What’s your angle?” Carl asked. “I’m the last person you ought to be giving pointers to.”
“Like I said, it’s a show, not just a bunch of races to see who’s fastest,” July said. “The sponsors want ratings, not foregone conclusions—that’s your problem. I have four racers faster than me and a few hot on my ion trail—that’s mine.”
“You’d still do better with me eliminated,” Carl said. “How do I know you’re not going to sabotage me?”
“You teach me a few of your tricks,” July replied. “I show you how to play the game outside the game. I’ve gotta figure out a way to beat you in the finals, but until then, you’re my ticket. Even if I don’t win it all, the exposure will be a huge boost to my career. I’ll get an invite to one of the pro circuits.”
“I’m not going to have time to show you much of anything before the head-to-head races after lunch,” Carl said. “You think you can handle Mr. 28th place? I, uh… had something else in mind when you said you wanted to go someplace private.” He glanced around the cramped room. The ceiling was just above his head, and there was hardly room to maneuver around the child-sized laaku bed. Either a change of venue was in order, or Carl was out of luck.
July bit her lip. “You’re as subtle as a beer advert. Last night was no time for fooling around. But today I’d like to show you the celebratory dance of my people.” She touched a control panel, and the bed retracted into the wall. July sauntered forward and put her arms around Carl’s neck. If she minded the taste of stale coffee on his breath, she showed no sign of it as she kissed him.
The carpet on the floor was thick and soft. Without the bed in the way, there was plenty of room.
# # #
“Did you hear that?” Mriy asked. She held up a hand and the poker game around the kitchen table came to an abrupt halt. She had the best ears among the crew by far. Tanny glanced down at her pair of jacks, wondering if she was going to get a chance to play them.
“Hellooo up there!” a voice called from the cargo hold. Through the intervening door, it was muffled and distant, but it was coming from inside the ship.
“I told you we should have closed it up,” Tanny muttered.
“Relax,” Roddy said. “This is Phabian. You aim a blaster at someone and the stun drones will be on you like a swarm of starving locusts. I’ll go see what this guy wants.” The laaku threw away his cards and left the table.
“No,” Tanny replied. “I’ll go. If this gets ugly, it’s on me. Until Carl gets back, I’m in command.”
“So we get to ignore you instead of him?” Mort asked. “Fine. I’m going with you. If things get ugly, I’d rather we be the ones who come out pretty.”
There was a look in the wizard’s eye that she didn’t like. So often, it was easy to fall into the trap of thinking of Mort as a kindly old uncle, gruff on the outside but with a heart of gold. But while everyone in the crew had killed at some point in his or her life, only Mriy and Mort seemed to be naturals. With the azrin, it was cultural—Mriy was born and raised to hunt and fight. Even with her marine training and the drugs she took, Tanny still had nightmares about blaster holes through ruined bodies, about pieces of people where they didn’t belong, and about vengeance from beyond the grave. Mort had a soul like old leather. There had been a few like that in the marines—lifers and killers all of them. He was already at peace with killing whoever might be down in the hold.
“Whatever,” Tanny said. She felt naked without a blaster at her side as she headed for the cargo bay. But as Roddy said, it was Phabian, after all.
A prim, suited gentleman waited at the top of the lowered cargo ramp. White waistcoat. White slacks and shoes. White smile. All set off by dark skin and close-cropped black hair. “Aha! There is someone aboard. Allow me to introduce myself, I’m—”
“What are you doing here?” Tanny shouted down from the catwalk landing at the top of the stairs.
“As I was about to say, my name is a Clay Puente, client relations director for the Harmony Bay Corporation here on Phabian.” He put a hand across his stomach and twitched forward in a bow.
“Lucky us,” Tanny deadpanned.
Puente gestured toward the open cargo bay door. “Your ship was open and welcoming. I was hoping I might meet with your first officer to discuss a business arrangement.”
“I take it you know who the captain is, then?”
“Roughly four billion people know where your captain is right now,” Puente replied. “If you had meant to keep that information secure, it would have been advisable to keep off the public holovid feeds.”
“We thought of that a bit late,” Tanny replied. Her hand drifted to the empty spot at her hip where her blaster should have been holstered. “But either way, we don’t have any business with your company, and we don’t want any.”
“Oh, but on the former point you are mistaken,” Puente said with a raised finger. “You have something of ours, an item which was entrusted to your care for a delivery that was never made.”
Shit. That box on Meyang wasn’t for some small-time smuggler.
That idiot Carl had found was a middleman for Harmony Bay. Was there anything Carl got involved in that didn’t turn to pyrite the second it looked like a payday? “Sorry. You got the wrong ship.”
“I don’t believe that I have,” Puente replied. “Please, let’s not be unreasonable. You were promised a fee for delivering this… package.” Tanny wondered how close he came to letting slip what it really was. “I believe we can still honor that arrangement.”
“Get rid of him,” Mort spoke softly from just the other side of the door, out of view of the Harmony Bay diplomat.
It made sense. There was no point in rushing to a deal. If Puente thought they had a legal claim on the box, he’d have come with planetary security in tow. He wanted to deal. “Come back tomorrow.”
“What will have changed by tomorrow?” Puente asked, clasping his hands behind his back.
“I need to get in touch with the captain,” Tanny said. “Now get off my ship.”
After Puente departed, Tanny raised the cargo bay door and sealed the ship. “That felt dirty even saying it,” she griped. “Carl’s help is the last thing we need right now.”
“Might be a bit of a bother, but maybe we ought to have another crack at figuring out what’s inside?” Mort asked.
Roddy ambled over, the cube of A-tech plastic in his hand. “You can’t see inside with magic. We don’t have the scanners here to peek inside. I don’t like the idea of dragging this thing out to some lab for inspection. Who the hell knows what could be in it?”
“Not this again,” Esper said. “Doesn’t anyone remember the egg?”
“Exactly,” Roddy said. “If we’d taken that thing someplace with proper scanners, we’d all be locked up right now.”
“Speak for yourself,” Mort grumbled.
“Well, I just bought us a day to figure out a plan,” Tanny said. She took the cube from Roddy. It weighed even less than it looked like it should, if it was a solid brick of plastic ten centimeters per side. “We’ve got until then to decide what to do with it.”
“Meat to the dogs,” Mort said.
“Huh?” Roddy asked.
“You want the dogs off your trail, throw them a slab of steak,” Mort said. “Maybe we just give these clowns their little plastic box and be done with them. Good riddance.”
“But that’s awful,” Esper said. She snatched the box from Tanny. “What if this has a little egg in it like last time? What if it’s a micro-colony of tiny people in stasis? Or a bioengineered agent that can kill based on a DNA signature?”
“Or maybe it’s just a solid brick of that plastic stuff, and it’s some new compound they want to replicate,” Roddy said. He took back custody of the box and tucked it under an arm. “I’m voting ‘no’ on the looking inside. Mort’s right. This black hole isn’t worth dancing around. They’re still looking to pay out twenty-five grand for it. I say we take them up on it.”
Tanny stared at the off-white plastic cube the laaku held. Would 25,000 terras be enough to stop the nagging questions from her conscience? “I’ll get a hold of Carl tonight. Make him decide this mess.”
# # #
VICTOR - B. CARLIN RAMSEY
It was an unassuming screen flash for an uninspiring victory. Some poor slob by the name of Jimmy Neeman had come in 32nd in the preliminaries and had been matched against Carl. Even taking it easy on the kid, Carl had finished a full six seconds ahead. As he hopped down from the simulator cockpit, he tried to avoid making eye contact with his vanquished opponent.
But his opponent had other ideas. “Haha! That was incredible!” Neeman shouted. By the growing volume, he sounded like he was heading Carl’s way. “You were made for the big time!”
Carl looked up in time to spot the recording drone from the corner of his eye. Of course. Everything was set to be recorded. But the grin on Neeman’s face looked genuine. The kid was either a pro actor or a good sport—no threat. He stopped and offered a lopsided smile and a wave. “Nice flying, kid. You’ve got potential.”
Neeman hugged him, right on camera, and gushed over how honored he was to have participated in the Silde Slims Cadet Racer Challenge. It was like one of the PR people for Silde Slims had dragged him aside ahead of time and clued him in that he was cannon fodder. Neeman probably had a nice little pile of terras in his account thanks to his coached advert. Carl couldn’t blame him. It probably cost the kid most of his life’s savings to get to Phabian and enter.
Once the drone went on its way, Stacy pulled Carl aside. “Good camera work. Sloppy racing. You lose your edge since this morning?”
“No point in rubbing the puppy’s nose in it,” Carl replied with a shrug. “I had nothing to prove?”
“Nothing to prove?” Stacy echoed. “Thirty-one other contestants are busting their asses to win, and you’ve got nothing to prove?”
Carl held up his hands, hoping Stacy reversed thrust before she crashed. “Whoa, cool it. I’ve been having a good day so far, after a rough start.” Across the simulator room, he made eye contact with July. She stood in the waiting zone for racers with her shoulders hunched and her arms hugged close. She straightened a little as she smiled at him, then started pacing the cramped confines of the waiting zone.
Stacy had followed his gaze. “Yeah… well get yourself pissed off again before the scoring round starts tomorrow. You fly lazy when you’re in a good mood.”
Carl’s pocket played a few bars from the beginning of “Smoke on the Water.” He dug his datapad out and saw the sender of the Priority One message he’d just gotten. “No worries. I’ll be pissed off again in just a minute.”
# # #
Privacy was at a premium on Phabian. Carl settled for a men’s washroom stall and a switch to text-only. Without a warrant, civil authorities weren’t allowed to crack standard comm encryption. That meant that all Carl had to worry about were independent hackers, Harmony Bay techs, Earth Navy intelligence, the Poet Fleet, and certain law-enforcement organizations that might be snooping on him to get at someone else.
IS THIS IMPORTANT? It was always a good question to get out of the way early. Tanny wasn’t usually one to waste his time on trivial crap, but he had been having a nice day. She had a habit of knowing how best to spoil those.
THEY SENT A GUY ABOUT THE BOX.
WHO? Carl had his suspicions, but Tanny wasn’t fooling anyone by playing coy. Either the comm was secure, or it wasn’t. The sort of people who hack into private comms weren’t idiots.
H.B. THEY’RE WILLING TO PAY THE INITIAL PRICE AS IF WE DELIVERED ON TIME.
WHEN DO YOU NEED TO ANSWER? GUN-TO-HEAD RIGHT NOW?
SWEET OF YOU TO ASK. I BOUGHT US TILL TOMORROW.
SMELLS SUSPICIOUS. IF IT WAS LEGALLY THEIRS, THEY’D PRESS CHARGES. IF THAT SHIP WAS AT MEYANG TO PICK IT UP, IT’S WORTH MORE THAN 25K TO THEM. Starships cost money to run. If there was one thing that owning one had riveted into Carl’s brain, it was the expense of travel and maintenance, not to mention the salary that a crew that size must have drawn. Coming back with the initial 25k was a low-ball offer.
CAN YOU BE BACK HERE TOMORROW TO NEGOTIATE?
NO CAN DO. I’M A LITTLE BUSY.
WHAT DO I TELL THEM?
JUST THAT. PUT ‘EM OFF A FEW DAYS. MAKE ‘EM SWEAT. MAYBE THEY’LL SWEETEN THE OFFER THEMSELVES. RODDY’S RIGHT. THEY CAN’T TOUCH US HERE. Carl was beginning to like high-security space. Out on the edge of civilized space, a big outfit like Harmony Bay could buy or bully their way into doing whatever they wanted. On Phabian they were a big fish in a colossal reef. The law was on his side for once. It was an odd feeling.
He closed the comm channel. “What do those fuckers think is in there?” It didn’t matter. For once, they weren’t going to look, and they were going to line their pockets with hardcoin terras in exchange for it.
# # #
Carl settled into a couch in the lounge area provided for the winning pilots. By the time he was done dealing with Tanny, two more pilots had qualified for the main competiti
on. One was a dark-furred laaku woman, the other a pale human kid with a thick Martian accent. The 4 vs. 29 race was showing on a modest holo-projector in the corner of the lounge, with the volume turned down.
“So, here’s the front-runner,” the laaku said. Carl spared a glance at the leader board to get her name: Gurdi of Renflour. He checked the kid’s name while he was at it: Jordan Myles. “Heard you’ve got a hometown boy as your mechanic.”
“I’m no idiot,” Carl replied. “Four hands and a quick brain’s what I look for in a mechanic. Says laaku to me.” He checked the lounge fridge and the refreshment table, but there was no beer. He settled for a Readi-Bru coffee and left the array of pastries and hors d’oeuvres alone. Without checking, the stuff could have been made from anything, thanks to laaku culinary voodoo.
“Hey, while it’s just us in here, can you tell us any navy stories?” Jordan asked. Carl guessed the kid was eighteen, maybe twenty years old, tops. Old enough for pilot certification, young enough not to need a shave by mid-afternoon.
Carl watched the current race for a moment, taking in the general skill of the pilot through a pair of turns with his opponent hot on his tail. Nothing to get worked up over. “Sure. This one time, I was flying a ship, and a bunch of other guys in ships shot at me. They didn’t kill me. Eventually it happened enough times that I ended up here in this room, not dead.”
“I like that one,” Gurdi said. “I had an uncle who told ‘em like that. Only problem is his didn’t end like yours.”
“Phabian Navy?” Carl asked.
Gurdi nodded. “My parents talked me out of following him. With all the whispering about a war coming with Eyndar Empire, I guess I made the right choice.”
“Always another war coming,” Carl said. “Long as us Earthmen run ARGO, we’ll make sure of that.”
“Earth doesn’t run ARGO,” Jordan said. “Mars has just as much authority as—”
“Stow it, kid,” Carl said. “I’m not here for a civics lesson. Hmm, looks like Jarvik won his race.” The fourth-place qualifier had held off a strong showing by the 29th. July was next. “See if you can keep a sock in it for this next one.”