Four on the Run

by Jeff Deischer

  The former Republic of Earth sailor took this in stride. Turning to Noomi Bloodgood, he said, “Give me your crystal.”

  When she pretended not to hear, he said, “Come on. It’s not enough to make a difference. A couple hundred stellars.”

  “Oh, all right,” Noomi sighed as she dropped her own crystal into Tully’s hand. While his hand was wider and longer, her slender fingers were longer than his.

  Within two hours, Tully had lost Noomi’s money.

  Activating his comm badge, he contacted Indri, aboard the Vishnu. “Hello … we need a little help.”

  “What sort of trouble have you found?” asked the Delphian priest patiently. Considering the impetuous nature of the pair on Halo, he was almost surprised one of them hadn’t contacted him earlier.

  “No trouble,” Tully said quickly. “We just need a little money, that’s all.”

  “What happened to the crystals I gave you?”

  “We used them,” the human replied, trying to sound innocent. “That’s why you gave them to us, isn’t it?” He smiled and winked at Noomi.

  “How much to make your problem go away?”

  “Only two hundred. Or maybe three. But not more than four.”

  “Four is all that is in our operating fund,” Indri reminded.

  “Well, you and Wormwood each have two hundred,” Tully countered.

  “Yes, we do. Our own private funds.”

  “All for one, and one for all,” Tully said.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s the motto of the Republic navy,” explained the Earthman, grinning at his ability to lie well.

  “I like it,” Indri said.

  “You all are living on my ship for free, you know,” Tully reminded gently. “I’ve never asked any of you for anything. And none of you have ever said thank you.”

  “Very well,” the Delph answered in a tired voice. “I’ll be down shortly.”

  Indri Mindsinger was as good as his word, giving Tully his own mikorn crystal, which was of an equivalent value as the Earthman’s. When he seated himself beside his two colleagues to stay and watch, Tully told him, “You might not want to see this.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You might ruin my luck,” explained Tully, his eyes motioning toward the door repeatedly.

  Indri gazed at the human. He was acting suspiciously. Intrigued, the Delph decided to remain.

  Seeing this, Tully said, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  The Delphian priest watched as the six beings played. Slowly but surely, Tully’s pile of chips grew. Indri felt something was wrong, but could not immediately pinpoint what it was. Finally, with surprise widening his black eyes, he exclaimed, “You –!”

  “Loose lips sink ships!” Tully snarled suddenly.

  This took Noomi, who witnessed the exchange, by surprise. She did not understand what was happening. “What’s going on?”

  But her companions did not look at her. Their eyes were locked upon one another.

  Finally, Indri said, “Tully accidentally stepped on my foot. My apologies to all.” Standing, he said, “I’m going for a walk. Perhaps that will improve how I feel.”

  Forgetting him, the others resumed their game.

  Near dawn, Tully and Noomi returned to the Vishnu. The Earthman was unusually quiet. Judging by his look, Indri asked, “Did you lose all the money? It would be justice if you did.”

  Tully pulled his hands from his pockets, revealing a number of mikorn crystals. “No, I won about nine thousand.”

  Surprised, Indri asked, “Then why are you so glum?”

  “The game broke up when someone came into Yodin’s and announced that another miner had just disappeared,” Noomi explained.

  “I see. What were the circumstances?”

  “Well, he just disappeared from a mine shaft. That’s where all of them have disappeared from, from what I could make out. Not all of them have occurred on the same asteroid. There’s a small cluster of them. Some of the mines have been shut down.”

  “And no one’s anxious to go looking for the missing men,” Tully added. “Some of them think it’s spooks or something.”

  “Others think the cannebec drives them mad and they wandered off. Since the shafts connect to natural passages, it’s hard to conduct a thorough search. Only the actual mining shafts have been mapped in most of the asteroids.”

  “But the disappearances are confined to certain asteroids?” asked Indri.

  Noomi nodded. Then, suddenly, she asked, “Wait – what do you mean it would be justice if Tully had lost all his money?”

  “He cheated,” Indri said simply.

  “What?! Is that what you got riled up about?”

  The Delph nodded. “I do not approve of cheating but to expose Tully would have caused more problems that it would have solved. The wrath of the miners might not have been confined to the guilty party.”

  Noomi scowled at the Earthman.

  Tully grinned sheepishly. “Are you madder that I cheated or that I didn’t tell you?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “How about you, Indri?”

  “I am not angry, just disapproving.”

  “That’s mighty mature of you,” remarked Tully.

  “My species is more mature than humans, even in this age,” the Delphian priest said. “Every sentient being is responsible for his own actions, and no one else’s. You will have to answer for your actions eventually.”

  “I’d say karma owes me fourteen hundred years,” retorted Tully, relieved no one was angry with him.

  “I need a long sleep before anything else,” Noomi said, stretching slinkily as she headed in the direction of the main elevators.

  Like nearly everyone in the Borderlands, Milas Pertaxas had come seeking his fortune. It was one of the last frontiers in space – unless one wanted to dare Cosmos Incognita that lay coreward and spinward from the Imperium. He had come in five years earlier on the Shonaya Ru, a converted cargo ship that took settlers to Tarxix, an Imperium world that lay on the boundary of the Borderlands. While official colonies by either the Imperium or the Instrumentality were forbidden, individuals were still permitted to settle in the Borderlands – homesteaders, in effect.

  There was big business in transporting settlers to the Borderlands. The treaty made it safe to go into, to some degree. Earlier, you were as likely to be killed by Layeb fanatics as inclement planets or pirates, though there were still some of both. That’s why the Templars had been employed, to make space safe for Imperium citizens. Even if the government couldn’t officially sponsor colonization, having a majority of the population in the Borderlands loyal to the Imperium would eventually work to its advantage. A time would come when the Borderlands would be forced to choose between the Instrumentality and the Imperium, the Tatar-dominated government believed. So while officially neutral, they tacitly condoned its citizens settling in the territory, and were willing to spend stellars to protect them.

  Megacorporations like the Tri-Planetary Corporation also employed the Templars, both for overt and covert protection, the latter protecting against industrial espionage. But the majority of enterprises in the Borderlands were more like Halo than Tri-Planetary, or T.P.C. as it was often called.

  Pertaxas, a big-boned, gray-skinned, four-armed Thurgal from Penitan, had quickly lost his stake – as most did, although the time it took to do so varied from being to being – and had been forced to work odd jobs to survive. He bounced from one planet to another, until he’d found steady work at Halo. The operation being a co-op, pay was based on shares that were figured on a number of factors, such as how dangerous the work was, how necessary it was, the skill needed to perform it and seniority. Pertaxas was in good shape. It was hard but honest work, and, after a few more years, he’d have enough to retire – not just start over, but honest to Shutan retire!

  Of course, that was if the mine wasn’t shut down because of the strange disappearances in
recent weeks. Pertaxas was as spooked as anyone, because he went into the mines where men had disappeared. He didn’t sit in a cushy office in the main asteroid – he was a worker.

  The missing miners seemed to have just walked away from their jobs into nothingness. Their tools had been abandoned. There was no blood, no signs of violence, though, considering the terrain and the work being done, the latter was harder to determine. It was unclear if tools and machines had been disturbed – or simply abandoned in panic, though there should have been nothing present to panic the men, for the work sites were airless and uninhabited.

  The disappearances had occurred on a number of asteroids in the same general area, a cluster that was being worked farther along the ring of debris, as nearer objects had been emptied of their valuable content.

  Perturbations in this cluster had been observed, and no suitable theories as to what caused the quakes had been put forth. They were too small for volcanic or seismic activity. Someone had suggested that this had to do with the disappearances – perhaps some sort of unknown space warp was present, but several of them inside asteroids and nothing detectible in space discouraged this theory. At any rate, none of the men had been found buried under rubble in the tunnels, so the effects of the quakes had not killed them. The cause of the quakes might have been another matter, but no one knew for certain.

  There was no known cause for the disappearances so those at Halo turned to unknown ones. A number of ideas had been put forth, including some sort of space delusion, perhaps caused by an unknown phenomenon. The men wore heavy atmosphere suits, so nothing such as gas or radiation should have affected them. There was simply no viable explanation for what was happening.

  But the cannebec veins were too rich to ignore, so bonuses were paid to men willing to work the area of mystery. Many miners quit despite this. Milas Pertaxas was one replacement who came forward. It was less that he was fearless than he was greedy.

  The Thurgal had been working for less than a week when he felt a strange sensation. He could not explain it. He felt as though he were being watched, though, of course, there was no one to watch him. The big coring machines were operated by a single worker. More men were required in the cleaning up process, when the rubble was collected so that the cannebec could be separated from worthless rock. Theoretically, Pertaxas was alone. But he could not get over the feeling that he was not.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something move – or thought he did. This was impossible, for in that direction lay one of the natural passages within the asteroid. If someone from the Halo came for him, that was not where they would come from. There were no prospectors – workers who scouted ahead for veins to later be plundered – working that area. There should be nothing there that could be moving.

  Pertaxas gazed toward the shaft. There was nothing there.

  But his feeling of being watched was stronger than ever.

  Despite not seeing anything, the Thurgal was unable to ignore the feeling, and stopped the corer. Climbing down out of the big machine, he walked in the direction of the unexplored passage.

  Milas Pertaxas was never seen again.

  When the latest disappearance had been detected, the miners gathered in the city square of Halo, which lay at the end of the main concourse of the complex. The angry workers demanded to know what was being done about the disappearances. Pyatt Berbeck, the manager of the operation, presided over the impromptu meeting.

  Indri Mindsinger, Noomi Bloodgood and Tully happened to be in the audience when Berbeck began speaking.

  “We’re shutting down operations in that sector of the field,” said the mine manager. “This is going to raise costs, because we’re abandoning that region and moving elsewhere, father away in the field.”

  “But whatever’s happening is moving closer,” objected one of those in the crowd. “They started out in 12-A and now they’re in 4-F. It’ll eventually reach here. Then what?”

  “We’re making investigations to find the cause,” said Berbeck in a tone that was not entirely convincing.

  “I don’t know where 12-A and 4-F are but if the problem is heading this way, I want to leave before it gets here,” declared Tully.

  “We have plenty of time,” countered the Delphian priest. “It will be weeks before whatever is causing the disappearances reaches this asteroid, if it ever does. They are confined to that one region, and may only be moving around in it. A random movement in this direction may only make it appear that it is moving toward Halo City.”

  “I don’t care,” Tully said bluntly.

  “You are a coward, aren’t you?” grinned Noomi.

  “Devoutly. I come from a long line of cowards. That’s why there is a long line of cowards. The Tulls exercised the better part of valor for centuries and survived to make a long line.”

  “You can always stay on the Vishnu if you don’t like it here,” the Tatar girl suggested.

  “What makes you think we’ll be safe there?” Tully objected. “Our business will be finished in a couple of days and I suggest we get out of here as soon as that’s done.”

  “We would have no reason to stay after our deal is complete,” agreed Indri. “We should be able to supply the Vishnu in that time.” The Earthman had repaid Noomi and Indri what he owed them, and more, and, as they’d all agreed earlier to do when they earned any money, put a percentage of it into the group till for operating expenses. For the first time, they did not have to worry about food or protium, at least for a few weeks. And they could begin to plan.

  Commerce, a market world as its name suggested, was not too far away, and it was the obvious place to make larger preparations. It was to be their next destination.

  When they returned to the Vishnu, Tully hurried to Rastheln’iq’s quarters. He found the plant man hard at work. “How much longer until we can leave?” he asked anxiously.

  The Vir glanced at Tully. “I estimate eight days.”

  “Eight days?! Are you crazy?”

  “No. I am busy. And every minute I take to explain things to you, our departure is delayed by a minute.”

  Tully left without replying.

  Naturally, Tully wasn’t happy at this turn of events, and, predictably, he chose to deal with bad news as he was wont to do – with liquor. He drank alone and in silence, as he had done for the past two evenings. Normally, he was gregarious when imbibing but not only did he not know anyone in Agrittii’s but there was not even a fellow human present in the establishment. A dozen of known space’s races were represented in the tavern but Earthmen was not one of them.

  By now, Tully spoke pidgin Lingua Galactica, so he could converse with others if he wished to, understanding the general thrust of a discussion and being able to make his point. Now, he did not wish to. He planned to drown his sorrows and proceeded to do just that.

  An hour passed.

  Tully ignored the talk going on around him in the tavern, for it did not interest him. He had even less interest in talk about work than he did in work itself. He rued the day his father forced him into the navy, more so now than ever before. His troubles had multiplied since awakening fourteen centuries after his day.

  The bar talk turned to the disappearances. This got Tully’s attention, making him forget his grievances against his family.

  “Lay off that stuff,” the Earthman complained. “You’re giving everyone the jitters.”

  This remark did not go unchallenged.

  “Who’re you?” demanded one being who was swathed in the clothing of a mine worker.

  “I’m someone who doesn’t like talk about bogeymen,” Tully retorted sourly, the liquor having bolstered his normally absent courage.

  He then had to explain what a bogeyman was, which took the fun out of complaining and Tully said so, suggesting that his audience would never amount to anything more than ignorant miners – “lubbers”, in naval parlance, slang for “land lovers”.

  Naturally, this didn’t sit well with the workers. A very la
rge one rose to his feet and approached the Earthman.

  Bolstered by his alcohol consumption, Tully stood to meet the worker. The man was big, slow. Tully got in the first punch. His fist flew relatively straight – which was nearly a miracle considering his current inebriated condition.

  It landed solidly with a loud thump. But the big man did not react as if he’d been struck.

  His own fist flashed out, not particularly swiftly but too fast for the impaired Earthman to avoid. Tully staggered back as if he’d been struck by a well-swung shovel. After a several steps, he just sat down on the floor as if this was his intent. He sat there for a few moments, then, to his credit, attempted to rise. It took him two tries to get to his feet.

  By this time, the big miner had returned to his table, and was once again conversing with his fellow workers.

  Hefting a chair, Tully charged the big man’s back. He came forward, stumbled. The chair clacked on the stone floor of the tavern as the human went down. It bounced once and landed at the base of another miner’s chair, striking it.

  Seeing this, a third worker stooped to pick up the errant chair. When the miner whose seat had been struck reacted to the impact he’d felt, he turned around and saw a man wielding a chair behind his back. Jumping to what seemed an obvious conclusion, he launched himself into the other laborer. The two crashed into the big man, who was not so forgiving at this second intrusion. He manhandled both men into the air, one in each massive hand, and threw them a dozen feet, where they crashed into a table of miners. Those seated at the tables of both workers rose to help their colleagues. The big worker obliged them, his own tablemates joining in.