Boneyards (20 page)

I
have the entire bar's attention now. No one is even pretending to ignore me. People I can barely see in the back of the room have stopped speaking and have turned toward me. The waitress leans one elbow against the bar, facing me, her foot on the rail running underneath it. The bartender clutches a single mug, as if he stopped working mid-drink.

“Ghost stories?” the old man asks, sounding incredulous.

I nod.

“You don't mean the kind that end with ‘Boo!’ right? You mean something else,” he says.

“Something else entirely,” I say. “I want to know about places where people die mysteriously, parts of space everyone ignores, those old wrecks that no one enters because they're supposed to be haunted.”

He laughs, then shakes his head. “What do you really want?”

I am not laughing. “I just told you.”

“Why?” he asks.

I know better than to answer him. I can't give a satisfactory answer to that question. “That part's none of your business.”

“Then there's really no reason to talk to you,” he says.

“There's no harm either,” I say. “You're not ratting out a friend, you're not sending me after some existing ship, and you're not betraying any secrets.”

“Ghost stories aren't worth the risk of coming to this bar,” he says.

“To me they are.”

He makes a disgruntled sound, gets up, and walks away. But the woman next to me, a slender thing who makes the waitress look young, says, “There's the Boneyard.”

Everyone glares at her, and from the back, someone makes a shushing sound.

The woman rolls her eyes. “There's no harm in telling her. She can't get in there any more than we can.”

I don't say anything. If I sound too eager, no one will talk to me.

“Besides,” the woman says, “she might pass it.”

“It's your funeral,” a man farther back says.

The woman gets up and moves to my table. She has the look of a longtime spacer, too thin by half, brittle bones, eyes bigger than any other feature on her face.

“You're asking about ghost stories?” she says. “We got a big one. We have thousands of ghost stories floating for anyone to find.”

Now's the time for the question, but only as a prompt. “What do you mean?”

“There's a ship graveyard not too far from here,” she says. “You won't find it on any map. The maps steer you away from it. No route goes near it.”

“Except one,” another man says.

She waves a hand at him, shushing him without really looking at him. “That route's not even close,” she says.

“But you can see the Boneyard,” the man says.

“You can see the Boneyard if you head straight for it, too,” the woman says. “Which I don't recommend.”

“Why not?” I ask.

“Because of the field around it,” she says. “The energy disrupts ships that get too close.”

That really has my attention now, but I try not to show it. I don't move; I just study her, as if her information is only passingly interesting.

But my heart is pounding. I'm glad Coop's not here. Coop, who has become so impatient he can barely do an analysis from one place to the next.

I'm not going to ask about the energy, not right away.

“That gap shows up on every map, doesn't it?” I ask. I give her the coordinates of the empty region that Mikk found. “Is that it?”

She nods as that shushing sound echoes from the back again.

“It's been there forever,” she says. “And you can only see it; you can't go in.”

“Why not?” I ask.

“The force field,” she says as if I'm dumb.

I tilt my head back slightly. Then I sigh. “Okay,” I say. “I asked for ghost stories, I know. But I was kinda hoping they were true.”

She frowns. I've clearly offended her. “This is true,” she says.

“Nice try,” I say. I almost add the dismissive
honey
that the old man used. “But either your ship graveyard only has a few ships or you're making it up. Because nothing has the power to maintain a ‘force field’ that would cover an entire ship graveyard, at least not in the way I'm imagining it.”

She glances at the others. She has a stake now in convincing me because she went against everyone else in the bar to let me know this Boneyard exists.

“You can't imagine this,” she says. “It covers an area bigger than Azzelia, bigger than most space stations. Bigger than some moons, I think.”

I give her a skeptical half smile. “If you really want to know how gullible I am,” I say, “let me give you a clue. I'd believe that there are ghosts flying through space and invading spaceships before I believe in this little fairy tale.”

“You asked, honey,” the old man says from the back of the room. “Now shut up and leave.”

That makes my smile fade. If I truly believed what I just said—and I don't, I completely believe this woman—then his little outburst would have convinced me I were wrong.

I look back at her. Her cheeks are ever so slightly pink. She looks both mad and uncomfortable. For some reason, she decided to do me a favor, and I'm treating her badly.

“Your friends don't want me to know about this Boneyard,” I say. “So maybe I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

“Gee, thanks,” she says sarcastically.

“It's the force-field part of your story that doesn't work for me,” I say. “There's nothing in the known universe that could power a force field that big.”

She shrugs one shoulder. “It exists.”

“Everywhere on this graveyard?” I ask. “Because there have to be gaps.”

“Go see for yourself,” someone shouts.

She looks at me, and I can tell she disagrees with that person, but she doesn't want to say so. She no longer feels like she needs to talk to me. I've probably pushed her a bit too far.

“You've tried, haven't you,” I say softly.

She nods.

“Did you find gaps?”

“I can't get close enough,” she says. “No one can.”

I take my boots off the nearby chair and put my feet flat on the floor. Then I sit up. “What do you mean, exactly?”

“The force field is really powerful,” she says.

“I get that,” I say.

“No, you don't,” she says. “The reason the routes go around it isn't because we're trying to keep the Boneyard secret.”

“Although it would be nice if we could!” the old man yells at her.

“It's because that field is dangerous.”

“Yeah,” I say again. “I get that.”

“From a long distance away,” she says. “Sometimes the field destroys a ship that gets too close. Sometimes it repels the ship and leaves the ship intact. There's no way to know what'll happen to you.”

That sounds familiar. An
anacapa
field? A malfunctioning stealth-tech field?

“Has anyone ever gotten close?” I ask.

“People who get too close die,” says a man on my other side. “There's no salvage to be had, if that's what you're looking for.”

Good guess on his part. The fact that he's guessing means that they can't figure me out. Which is also a good thing.

“I'm not interested in salvage,” I say.

“Yeah,” says the old man. “You're interested in ghost stories.”

“I am,” I say. “I'm trying to track down some history.”

They're quiet again.

“What kind of history?” the man near me asks.

I give him a sideways glance. “I take tourists on wreck dives. I look for good historical wrecks.”

“There's plenty of wrecks in the Empire,” the old man says.

“And I take out high-end tourists. The folks who can pay for a resort like this one. They want the latest, newest, most exciting thing. So they wanted to come out here, where no one from our sector has come, and they want to dive a few wrecks that none of their friends have even heard of.”

“Sounds like a waste of time,” the old man says.

I shrug. “It's a living.”

“It won't be if you go near the Boneyard,” the woman says. “Your ship could get ruined.”

“Or,” I say, “I could find exactly what I'm looking for.”

“You're crazy, lady,” someone says from the back.

I nod. “I've been called that before.”

“It's silly to risk your life for a piece of history,” the old man says.

I turn toward him. “But I only have your say-so that I'm risking my life.”

“So check it out,” the man next to me says. “But be warned: if something happens to you out there, you're on your own. No one will come rescue you.”

“We're not like the Empire,” the old man says. “We don't take responsibility for stupid people doing stupid things.”

I grin at him. “I'll take that under consideration.”

The woman is watching me intently. “I thought you were only interested in the stories,” she says. “I didn't think you'd go there.”

“You haven't told me any stories yet,” I say. “What happened there to cause this Boneyard? Or is someone just storing ships there?”

“No one knows,” she says.

I make that skeptical face again. “No one knows,” I repeat as if I can't believe her. “
Someone
has to know.”

She shakes her head. “The ships are just there.”

“And more ships come in,” I say, “and someone maintains the force field.”

“That's just it,” she says. “No one goes near the place.”

“That you know of,” I say.

“That any of us know of,” she says. She looks at the others. “Right?”

There are a few reluctant nods around the room.

“So you're telling me this place just appeared one day?” I ask, my heart pounding harder. Coop would love to hear that. We might have the kind of field that is operating around the Room of Lost Souls, only in a kind of reverse. A field in which things are appearing instead of disappearing.

“No, I'm not saying that,” the woman says. “I'm saying it's always been this way.”

I turn my head toward her, no longer pretending at calm or disinterest. “What does ‘always’ mean?”

“Always,” she says. “As long as anyone knows.”

“Your lifetime?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says.

“Your parents' lifetime?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says. “And their parents', and their parents' parents, and on all the way back, back to the beginning of recorded history in this sector.”

I have to clasp my hands together so that no one can see that I'm shaking. “And this Boneyard has had the force field the entire time.”

“Yes,” she says.

“Filled with ships,” I say.

“
Yes
,” she says.

“And new ships come in when the old ones disintegrate into nothing,” I say.

“No.” Now she sounds exasperated again. “It's always been like this.”

“Unless your recorded history is really short,” I say, “those ships would eventually decay, even in space. They'd go away or dwindle down to parts.”

“Why don't you believe me?” she asks.

“You're telling me a fairy tale,” I say.

“I'm telling you the truth,” she snaps.

“As she understands it,” the man next to me says. “What we know is this: there's a force field, we can't get past it without losing ships or people or getting repelled from it. The Boneyard looks like it remains the same, but are those the same ships? Who knows. We also have no idea if those ships are coming and going within the force field. It's too large. We don't know anything about it. We have no idea if anyone is maintaining it or could maintain it.”

“And no one is trying to find out?” I ask, no longer able to keep the eagerness from my voice.

“People have tried to find out throughout recorded history,” he says. “And they've failed. You'll fail too.”

“So why tell me about it?” I say to the woman.

“You asked,” she says miserably.

“There's another reason,” I say.

She glares at me, then she looks at the entire bar. Her attitude is defiant, as if she expects all of them to dislike her immensely.

Maybe they do. I don't know, and at the moment, I don't really care.

“I'll tell you why. It's what no one else will tell you.” She nods toward the old man. “The strange energy signature your ship gives off? It has the same elements as that force field. If anyone can get inside that place, it's you.”

O
kay. Now I'm in trouble. I finally understand why Rupert was willing to bring me down here, why he provided clothes and advice and credit slips. Not to teach me a lesson about pickpockets and working above my station, but to help his friends figure out how to break into—maybe even steal—my ship.

I'm not even sure how to play this. I look around the bar. No one is talking. Everyone is staring at me, including the waitress and the bartender. They all want to know what I'll do.

What I really want to do is run, gather my group, and get the hell off this resort. But it's too late for that.

I'm stuck in the middle of this bar, with my back to the wall. I deliberately left my comm upstairs so I couldn't be traced. I'm not wearing any weapons—not that a weapon would do me much good—and no one on my team knows where I am.

So I decide I'm going to keep up my calm persona, the one that got me into this mess.

“You're kidding, right?” I ask. “You're making all of this up so that I'll tell you about my ship.”

The woman shakes her head. “We're not making anything up.”

I grin. “Nice try, folks. But my ship is pretty standard in the Nine Planets and—”

“No, it's not,” the old man says. “If it were, we'd see more of it.”

“Really?” I say. “How many spacers do you get at this swanky place? Not many, I'd wager. And I'll wager you don't get many who can afford a ship like that. It's high end, for people who are serious about their work. It's not a recreational vessel.”

“We'd still see it,” he says stubbornly.

I sigh. “Have you checked the manufacture? Because I didn't build that thing. I bought it.”

This much is true. I did buy it, and I kept the name of the company that made the
Two
on its registration, no matter what identity I used. So far, no one has tried to trace the
Two
back to its manufacturer, not that it would matter. I went through several different companies to buy the
Two
, and the manufacturer would have no record of the retail outlet that sold me the ship.

The difference between the ship I bought and the ship docked here on Azzelia is simple: we added an
anacapa
drive and some defensive capability. We didn't remove anything or change anything. We just added a few things.

“You're lying,” the old man says.

“Go ahead and check,” I say. “I'm sure someone has some kind of database access here. I don't mind waiting.”

The bartender nods once, but doesn't say a word. I'm not sure what that means, but the old man frowns.

“That energy signature is coming from your ship,” he says.

I shrug.

“Tell me what's causing it,” he says.

I shrug again.

“You can't tell me that you don't know what's going on with your own ship,” he says.

“
If
I believe you that there's an unusual energy signature, which I'm not sure I do, and
if
I believe that energy signature is similar to this miraculous force field that you've been talking about, and I'm not sure about that, then I would have to say that I'd need to investigate. Because I purchased my ship about a year ago, and it's got every part that the manufacturer put into it. I haven't changed anything in the drive or the communications system or even in the cloak, as crappy as that is.”

I'm looking at the old man, not at the woman or at the bartender.

“So,” I say, “if there is some kind of strange energy signature, it's either part of the ship, which therefore doesn't make it strange to me, or it's something my passengers brought on the ship. They're quite an eclectic bunch, more interested in history than in the now, as you probably know already, since they stated their intention on this resort was to find out more about the sector. That doesn't sound like a vacation to me, but hey, I just get paid to ferry them around. I don't decide what they should do to have fun.”

No one says anything. The old man looks like he swallowed something that tasted awful.

“However,” I say, resting one hand on the table and the other near my hip as if I'm carrying a weapon, “I don't believe there is a force field or an energy signature, and I think you all are just another version of that pickpocket I nearly broke in half outside. You want my ship, you figure you can scare me into giving you the specs and security protocols, and you think I'll do it all in the name of some energy signature. I'm really not that dumb.”

The silence is almost painful. No one moves, except the woman near me. Her gaze goes to my hip, then back to my face. I can tell: she's trying to figure out if I have some kind of weapon hidden there, a weapon she can't see.

“I also know that Azzelia is the kind of place that polices itself. If something happens to me, in this part of the resort, where tourists generally don't go, then no one will investigate or punish because the authorities here, such as they are, will figure I deserve whatever happened to me.”

The old man smiles just a little.

“However,” I say, as if I haven't noticed his look, “you folks should probably know that most of the folks I'm traveling with are former military, and they will have no qualms about defending my ship and figuring out what happened here. So take me on at your own peril.”

“We're not like that, miss,” the bartender says. He's not that convincing, but I suppose he has to say that for the authorities, in case something does happen. He needs to “prove” that he's not involved.

“Really?” I say. “Because the only way I'll know that's true is if I can get up and walk out of here, unharmed. No one follows me, and no one messes with my ship.”

My heart is pounding, but my voice is calm. I look around the bar, moving my head so that I see everyone. They're all watching me, but no one has made a move.

I stand.

“Thanks for the ghost stories,” I say, and walk toward the door.

I should have come in with someone else, because I can see 180 degrees—front and sides—but I can't see behind me. I can listen for movement, but if any of these folks are pickpockets or trained thieves, they can come up on me without making a sound.

I don't hurry, but I don't go slowly either. And when I reach the door, I push it open, then turn just enough so that they can see my face.

No one has moved, except to turn their heads to watch me leave.

I tip an imaginary hat to them, then slide into the bazaar. The noise here—music, laughter, conversation—takes away my aural protection. I'm in just as much trouble here as I was inside that bar. Maybe more trouble, if they contact someone.

I'm not going to go back with Rupert, but I do have to use the route he showed me. I don't know any other way back, and I'm not going to stumble around here searching for it.

I thread my way through the crowd, walk to that wall panel, and push on it.

It slides like any door.

I slip inside, bracing myself for another attack. But it doesn't come.

My heart is pounding so hard that I can't believe no one else hears it. I walk through the back area, doing everything I can not to run.

I didn't see Rupert in the crowd, but that doesn't mean he wasn't there. Nor does that mean he hasn't sent someone after me.

I wind my way through the passages, up the various stairs, and finally get to my room.

I can't stay here either. Rupert has access.

I open the door and stop. Someone is inside. I can tell just from the way the place feels.

I take a step toward the main room and see Coop, lounging on the expensive couch.

I let out a sigh of relief.

“Look at you,” he says with a grin.

I hold up a finger, shake my head, and close the door. Then I say, “Everything's changed. Let's round up the group. We need to get out of here. Now.”