“You’re a sailor,” she returned archly. “Don’t you know how to fight?”
“I went through basic training,” explained the human somewhat defensively, “but we would have had a contingent of marines on board if the Vishnu’d gone into service. Sailors don’t generally fight hand-to-hand.”
“Still, the idea has some merit,” put in Rastheln’iq. “Perhaps we can find some work that suits our abilities. Certainly, if Noomi can find work as a bodyguard, as Tully suggests, that is fine. My knowledge may be of some commercial value here. Indri Mindsinger may find work using his psychomancy skills. Tully?”
“I don’t know how to do much of anything … that’s why I joined the navy. Unless you count drinking and gambling as marketable skills.”
Noomi Bloodgood could not suppress a giggle at this remark, but said nothing.
“Then I suggest we do nothing untoward here because we may not have a ready means of escape,” Rastheln’iq continued.
“Untoward?” Tully mouthed.
Under her breath, the Tatar said, “Illegal.”
“The Templars have a base in the next system, and it would be unwise to draw their attention,” the Viridian scientist reminded his crewmates.
“Agreed,” said the Delphite priest. “Let us find a reputable mechanic to make the Overdrive 2 installation, and look further into acquiring the software and computer components we need.”
Noomi Bloodgood found temporary work at Moidal’s, a local security employment agency, contract work. Visiting merchants often required protection while conducting transactions planetside. Whatever crew might operate a ship on which the merchant might arrive on would not be trained for security, unless the ship belonged to the merchant and he’d picked the crewmembers himself.
Noomi had to demonstrate her combat abilities, armed and unarmed, and she impressed the recruiter, who discreetly did not ask how she had come by her skills. Her opportunity came two days after she applied for work. The agency arranged for her permit to carry lethal handguns, though her Zammers required no such licensing. The recruiter, a crusty-skinned Ployd from Ploydaise, was something of a weapons expert, and wondered aloud about the H.E.L. gun, which had come from the Vishnu’s armory.
“From an obscure planet far off the beaten path,” Noomi explained. “Not very powerful, but discreet.” She referred to its compact size, which made it easy to conceal. One would have to look hard to find the holster at the small of her back where she kept the weapon. “With my aim, it’s as deadly as a beamer.”
“I’m sure,” the recruiter agreed sincerely, having just witnessed the Tatar’s expertise on the agency’s private firing range.
Noomi Bloodgood’s client was Twylo Manga’ar, who, it turned out, was a Zucone, she learned when she contacted him by 3V, holographic communication, the following day. That meant he was an amphibian who possessed grayish flesh and large amber eyes covered in a nictating membrane. His upper lip consisted of a number of small semi-prehensile tentacles, which made his voice warble when he spoke. In a husky voice, the Zucone merchant said, “I am wishing you to come to the Birt Rigo tomorrow at noon, wishing you to escort me to my destination. I am thinking to repair to my ship, once my business is concluded, where your duties will end. I am wanting you to be one of two protection specialists I have employed.”
“Understood,” Noomi replied. “I’ll be there at noon.”
The next day, the Tatar arrived shortly before the appointed time at the good ship Birt Rigo. Her Templar training had taught her discipline. It also taught her to always be on the lookout for danger. She spotted this in the form of a short, squat being with greenish skin whose neck was nearly as tall as his torso. This was topped by a hairless head in which were set two round, sleepy-lidded eyes. Noomi recognized him as a Halakuon. “You my partner,” said the sentient in a throaty voice.
The Tatar girl nodded her affirmative. “I’m Noomi Bloodgood.”
“I Rin Ran Roon,” said the Halakuon, his head dipping slightly to reach the girl’s level. “I strong.”
“So I’ve heard.” The Halakuon hailed from a heavy gravity planet. “I Tatar … fast.”
“I know.”
A few moments passed before the great portal of the Birt Rigo opened and revealed Twylo Manga’ar. He was wearing an embroidered scarlet jacket over a brocaded black doublet that Noomi suspected provided protection against beamer fire. A short cloak was draped about his shoulders. Loose pantaloons tucked into knee-length boots covered the lower half of the Zucone. A matching black velvet cap tilted jauntily atop the merchant’s hairless head. The gray flesh seemed to fluctuate against the two high contrast hues, dark against the scarlet, light against the black. It also appeared to be moist. “Shall we be off?”
The Zucone carried nothing with him as he disembarked the Birt Rigo, which was a cylindrical ship with a ring at its midpoint. Noomi thought nothing of this as it did not concern her, except that she did not have to worry about someone trying to take something out of her client’s hands. Whatever business Twylo Manga’ar had in Commerce City might not involve physical objects; perhaps some sort of business meeting was the purpose of the Zucone’s visit. Maybe he dealt in information.
But whatever it was, it didn’t matter: Protection was protection and a job was a job. That was the Templar creed.
At a gesture from Twylo Manga’ar’s gloved hand, the trio began their short journey through the streets of Commerce City.
Appraising Rin Ran Roon, Noomi Bloodgood thought that he did not know where they were going, either. The Zucone had conspicuously not told her their destination, perhaps to eliminate the temptation of double-crossing him and arranging an ambush.
The Tatar wondered why Twylo Manga’ar had not hired the Templars. The mercenary organization was not difficult to contact, it being a business open for business.
But communications were sometimes sketchy in the Borderlands. Its inhabitants had access to neither the Imperium nor the Instrumentality’s communications networks, for the information there could be construed as propaganda, which was not permitted under the treaty that created the Borderlands. So everything but local communications was handled by a piecemeal system built by dozens of providers, the Tri-Planetary Corporation being the largest of these. Over the centuries, it had gobbled up smaller competitors by offering lucrative terms, until they now owned a majority of the Borderlands networks. This had its advantages in that service was now as close as possible to perfect reliability but it also meant that T.P.C. could charge what it wanted. The only thing preventing widespread rate hikes were so-called pirate networks that operated within systems claimed by Tri-Planetary. Without interstellar law, there was no court for T.P.C. to appeal to, so they hired the Templars to shut down the smaller operators, which had led to violence.
There was enough call for the Templars in the Borderlands that they had a base at Hazeltine, a neighboring system, so if Twylo Manga’ar desired to contact them, he surely could have. The Templars also maintained an impeccable record of service to their clients.
There were only two reasons why a sentient being would not hire the Templars if he needed protection: He couldn’t afford it or he couldn’t trust the Templars for some reason. The Zucone had his own ship. The odds were that he could afford the Templars’ prices. That meant his dealings were shady enough to impel him to steer clear of the Templars.
Noomi Bloodgood was pondering this when her hackles went up. Something was wrong! Her senses told her there was trouble. She concentrated to find where it originated amid the bustling streets of Commerce City.
But before she could pinpoint it, a bright blue pulse of light flashed down off a nearby roof and struck Rin Ran Roon in the neck. His head flopped over as Noomi took hold of Twylo Manga’ar and propelled him ahead. It took a few moments for the Halakuon’s brain to send the signal to his body that it was dead.
Everyone who planned an ambush knew that retreat was always the obvious reaction, so there would be me
n behind Noomi and the Zucone – unless the purpose was to assassinate her client rather than rob him, but shooting Rin Ran Roon seemed to disprove this. A decent planner might expect those on the run to move laterally, seek refuge in nearby shops either to the side or behind. The Tatar directed her ward into a shop doorway ahead of them, for few would expect her to go toward the shooting. She hoped that path lay clear.
Keeping an eye on the spot from which the beamer fire was coming, Noomi pushed Twylo Manga’ar to the sidewalk just as the weapon flashed again. Springing to her feet, she dragged the Zucone merchant into a shop. As she did so, she spied men coming along the street from both directions.
The Tatar didn’t like it. Her instinct was to fight. Her training was to fight. But her discipline told her to do her duty. That meant protecting the client.
In one hand she held a Zam gun, while she hustled Twylo Manga’ar through the store – a clockmaker’s shop – with the other, telling him, “You’re going to have to follow me if you want to get out of this alive. Do what I tell you when I tell you. We’re surrounded. There are too many to fight, even for me.”
Nodding, the Zucone warbled his understanding.
By now, the pair had arrived at the back door of the shop, over the protestations of the clockmaker. This was an old-fashioned hinged job and Noomi pushed it open a crack. Through the slit she saw three armed men who appeared to be waiting for trouble. She planned to give it to them.
They were positioned one door back from her location. This did not surprise the Tatar for it is what she would have done if she were the ambuscade planner. But she had outwitted them by going forward, rather than fleeing through the nearest door.
In a low voice, she told Twylo Manga’ar, “When the men go down, follow me.”
“I am understanding,” the Zucone warbled.
With a wild cry, she sprang from the doorway. Taken by surprise, only one of the trio of ambushers managed to get off a shot. It went wide of its mark.
Noomi mauled the three men, disarming them in the blink of an eye before any could draw a bead on her. When they went down, she glanced back to find Twylo Manga’ar coming toward her as instructed. Grabbing hold of his jacket, she pulled him along through the back door of a store on the other side of the alley.
On the street, they doubled back in the direction from which they’d come. They kept going until they’d lost themselves in the crowds of the streets, then changed direction to a perpendicular course that took them quickly away from the battle scene.
The following day, Twylo Manga’ar put Noomi Bloodgood in charge of a six-person detachment. They encountered no trouble on either leg of their journey, and the Tatar was handsomely paid for her services.
Days passed as the rest of the quartet of refugees did the labor of removing their Stardrive engine from the Vishnu. Pal oversaw the work, ensuring that it was done properly. This was the easy part, and Rastheln’iq had no trouble doing it with an occasional hand from Tully, whose help was not worth much more than the conversation he offered. He provided a pleasant if unnecessary diversion as the plant man worked. His brain was not distracted as an animal being’s might be by conversation. His mind was compartmentalized, like the Vishnu itself. The various sections operated largely independently under an umbrella master control, so to speak, a product of being a plant, not an animal. Although he derived little pleasure from non-scientific conversation, he absorbed what the human said to better understand him. He studied his erstwhile crewmates, for doing so might one day save his life.
This left Indri Mindsinger and Noomi Bloodgood the task of working out the other details of the trade. They found the components Rastheln’iq wanted for the computer, but they did not have enough cash to purchase and install even a refurbished good catalytic system, one capable of handling the raw protium found in gas giants. The Vishnu’s wouldn’t last long if they kept skimming gaseous planets for protium, for it was made in the days before such replenishment techniques and constructed for refined protium, and Tully was forced to scrub the one that they had. They bought modern tools on Commerce to do the job. All of this, combined with reasonable rations for a few weeks, severely cut into their operating funds.
The pair sat in a saloon in the city that surrounded the spaceport, named Commerce City. It was a bustling place, with dozens of alien races represented, not all of which were known to either Indri or Noomi. The saloon, the Urad, was a microcosm of the city.
“I’m getting pretty frustrated,” Noomi Bloodgood confessed. Their hunt had not been going well, and patience was not a trait for which the Tatar were known. The girl was drinking away her stress at the moment. She knew how to hold her liquor, as most career soldiers did.
“I remain hopeful,” returned Indri, although his voice, too, held stress.
“You’re not drinking,” Noomi observed. He had ordered an herbal brew.
“I am a priest … was a priest, before I became a ‘criminal’,” explained the Delph. He used an inflection on the word “criminal” that Noomi was able to ascertain his disdain for the term being applied to him. “We have certain strictures about what we may put into our bodies.”
“What happened?”
“I was shorn of my title and duties for announcing my belief that the Delph Consortium should leave the Imperium … by violence if necessary.”
“I always thought you Delph were non-violent,” said Noomi.
“Not precisely. We seek peace, but may use violence to achieve it,” explained Indri.
The Tatar girl laughed skeptically. “Sounds like justification to me.”
“Not at all,” Indri responded without rancor. “We don’t believe in initiating violence, but we use it in response to aggression. We are not isolationists or pacifists. We fight when we must. I believe we must fight to cast off Imperium oppression, but my people disagreed and made me a criminal.”
For a moment, Noomi said nothing, then asked, “But you’re not a priest now.”
“In my heart, I am still a priest.”
Noomi Bloodgood nodded, not completely comprehending the Delph’s feelings. The Tatars believed in the here and now, not the unseen metaphysical realm. Though some held believe in lives and worlds after death, it was not something they, as a species, worried about. It would take care of itself when it came – if it existed at all.
After a moment, Indri Mindsinger asked, “And you?”
“Me? There’s not much to my story. I disobeyed a direct order and was court-martialed.”
“And they sent you to Purgatory for that?”
Noomi nodded. “More or less.”
The Delphite priest gave the girl a wan smile. “I suspect more, but we’ll let the matter rest if you don’t wish to discuss it.”
“Thank you.”
The conversation soon returned to the matter of Overdrive 2 software, and how to acquire it. Presently, an elderly ruddy-skinned man approached the table where Indri and Noomi sat. The white-haired fellow said, “I couldn’t help overhearing your troubles. My name’s Lannisport. I may have a solution to your troubles.”
“Oh?” said Noomi Bloodgood, suspicious of anyone who offered help. The Tatar did not even wholly trust others of her kind from other tribes, for if they were near enough to interact, they were near enough to compete for resources. This, as much as anything, had kept them from forming their own interstellar empire for several centuries. In the end, they’d had to take over the existing government and mold it into something they recognized – a predatory pack of hunters.
Lannisport nodded. “I happen to know of a derelict not too far from here. It’s been picked clean, but the computer’s software should still be there – anyone who has scavenged the ship would have copied the software, not taken the computer. The ship was pretty shot up by pirates, and it’s doubtful the computer was ever salvaged.
“And if it was, all you’ll have lost is the time it takes you to look.”
“And what sort of compensation would you expect
for your help?” asked Indri.
“Oh, I think a thousand stellars would do it … plus a share of whatever you recover,” replied Lannisport.
“What do you expect us to recover?” asked Noomi.
“I don’t know, but if you find something others missed, I want a share of it.”
“If you’ll excuse us,” said Indri, “we need to discuss this in private.” The Delph waited until Lannisport had returned to the bar, where he weaseled a drink from another patron, before speaking.
“I sense that he is sincere,” the Delphite priest told Noomi. “Whether his information has merit is another matter. However, we are in a bind, and, as he said, all we have to lose is time, which we have plenty of.”
“Good,” agreed the Tatar. “I’m itching for some action after all this waiting around.”
Activating the personal communications badge of the Vishnu, Indri contacted Rastheln’iq and told him the details.
“A thousand stellars is a goodly sum of money, but a bargain compared to the prices we have found for the software,” remarked the plant man. “Everything is overpriced here, as you may have noticed.”
“I did,” agreed Indri.
“It will take some time to re-engage the Stardrive,” said Rastheln’iq. “We have only just disconnected all the connections, but have yet to remove any components. Give us twenty-four hours.”
“Very well,” replied Indri, who summoned Lannisport with a hand to tell him the news.
The atmosphere suits of the Vishnu were primitive, compared to the two that had been aboard the prison shuttle, but functional. These were required as the wreck Lannisport had described was riddled with holes, and could not possibly contain an atmosphere, except perhaps in limited areas.
The old man was quite intrigued by the Vishnu, and had inquired about it. “Never seen a ship of this design before.”
“Known space is a big place,” answered Rastheln’iq. “I am sure there are many cultures with which you are unfamiliar. In the Viridian Federation alone, there are dozens of races.”
Four on the Run Page 10