‘Really?’ he said with forced casualness, ‘so why’s that?’
‘Well, I’ve just cleared a whole load of vehicles heading out to your last known co-ordinates: police, fire-tenders, ambulances, press and all the other chasers, quite a party. And I notice that you’re taking a roundabout route back. You know, if I’d had any idea how much interest that neck of the woods would be receiving tonight . . .’ He let his voice trail off.
. . . you’d have asked for more money up front
, Jarek thought, and said, with all the sincerity he could muster, ‘Given how helpful you’ve been, I’m truly sorry to have put you to any additional inconvenience. ’ ‘How sorry?’ asked the other man bluntly.
‘I’m not sure we should be discussing this right now—’
‘Don’t worry, our com system’s been a bit flaky recently. The call-logs don’t always record cleanly . . . . So, I ask again: how sorry?’
Jarek weighed up his options. Finally he said, ‘About another twenty per cent.’
The traffic controller grunted, then said, ‘Forty.’
Which was robbery by any other name. With Nual on board he couldn’t take any risks, so, ‘Done,’ he said, knowing he had been. ‘Though of course it’ll be a case of as and when.’
‘Meaning?’ The man’s previously friendly voice had an edge to it now.
‘Meaning that as soon as I’m safely up in orbit, that’s when you get your bonus.’
Silence. Eventually the traffic controller said, ‘All right. But nothing gets deleted until we’re straight, understand?’
‘Got you.’ Jarek cut the connection.
He felt oddly unclean. For the last few months he’d been living a very different life. Not that there wasn’t corruption and deception on Serenein, there was, and sometimes on a breathtaking scale. But he was finding something petty-minded and rather grubby about the necessary small lies and greasing of palms that came with the freetrader lifestyle.
‘Right,’ he said to his passengers, ‘I need to focus on getting us away safely. We’ll talk again later.’
CHAPTER FIVE
One of the first lessons Taro had learnt when he left Vellern was that he had no chance of faking it out in the real world. If he didn’t know something - and there was shitloads he didn’t know - he’d save himself a lot of grief if he just asked. Ideally he’d ask Nual, but if she didn’t know, or wasn’t around, he’d bother anyone who might give him a useful answer.
He soon found that people - at least the kind of people he met on starliners - assumed that not knowing something everyone else knew meant he was stupid. So, just because he had no idea what terceball was (one of the most popular sports in human-space, apparently), or why the cap-index influenced how much stuff his credit would buy (because even though cap just meant the capacity of beacons to transmit data, it was the universal currency that all local currencies were rated against), they assumed he was some kind of idiot. At first he’d been insulted, then he’d tried to prove the fuckers wrong; finally he’d decided he didn’t much care what those rich dicks travelling between the stars for fun thought of him.
Now he wanted to ask if Jarek would carry on from where he’d left off before the com-call, but before he could open his mouth Nual stopped him.
With his friendly, slightly lopsided smile and expression suggesting that while he was giving you all his attention, he was not intruding, Jarek was, Taro reluctantly admitted, a personable-looking sort of cove. He was also a good ten years older than Nual, and Taro had no doubt he knew what was what in the world. But Nual was right; for all that self-confidence he oozed, there was an underlying uneasiness about him, like he was putting on a brave face. Hardly surprising given he’d just lost his only relative - Taro knew that feeling all too well. Looked like they were going to be hanging round with Jarek for a while; they could catch up fully later.
For the rest of the journey to the starport the three of them sat wrapped in their own thoughts. Jarek occasionally checked his console, and he made another couple of com-calls, all routine-sounding stuff to do with getting off-planet.
As Taro had discovered when they first arrived on Khathryn,
starport
was a generous term for what was basically a patch of flat ground with a few basic buildings off to one side. Compared to Vellern, this world was a backwater. Tourist liners only stopped at Khathryn so the punters could see something called the Rainbow Falls. Taro wouldn’t have minded seeing them himself, but he and Nual had parted company with the tourists as soon as the two shuttles had touched down. The rest of the passengers had been whisked off to the hospitality - such as it was - of Kendall’s Wharf. Taro hadn’t been sorry to say goodbye to their recent travelling companions.
Their starliner must have moved on: its shuttles were gone and the starport looked deserted, except for a small round craft parked away from the buildings. The flattened disc tapered slightly towards the edges, and there was something Taro immediately labelled a tit on the top. The ship had probably been white, once.
Jarek landed the aircar neatly next to it and they got out into the cold night air. At least it’d stopped raining. The darkness beyond the perimeter lights was total. Jarek went up to a door set in the rim of the disc and looked into a blinking green light on one side. He stepped back, the door slid open and a short ladder folded out.
They followed Jarek up the ladder and crowded into a tiny room, like a cheap version of the elevators on the starliner. The outside door closed, then another door opposite opened to reveal a short corridor leading into a large, semi-circular room, twice the size of the common room in Taro’s old homespace. There was a thick column bulging out of the middle of the shorter inside wall, with a ladder in front of it leading upwards. There were a couple of closed doors on either side of the column.
Jarek cleared his throat and said, ‘Welcome to the
Judas Kiss
.’
Taro had spent a little time in other people’s personal space - most often in hotel rooms, and he’d been there on business - but he’d never been anywhere quite as
lived in
.
The smell wasn’t strong, but it was distinctive: a mixture of food, drink, laundry and human male. An open galley area curved along the wall on the left; plates, mugs, drinks-bulbs and food containers covered most of the surfaces. On the right was an impressive set of entertainment units - looked like they included holo, flatscreen, gaming, audio, the works. A couple of large plush couches were perfectly positioned to watch, play or listen from; it was obvious which seat Jarek usually used, as only one was free of debris. Beside the couches was a multi-function fitness station, like those some of the passengers had used on the starliner; Taro hadn’t bothered to try one himself; the ability to run for a long time seemed a bit pointless when you could fly.
Taro was discreetly trying to work out what was draped over the fitness station’s handlebar when Jarek said, sounding at once irritated and embarrassed, ‘I wasn’t expecting visitors.’ He headed across the room as he added, ‘I need to get us off-planet before the authorities decide they want to talk to us.’ He gestured vaguely around. ‘Make yourselves at home.’
‘I’ll find out what the newsnets have to say about the cliff-house,’ said Nual.
‘Good idea. I’ll be on the bridge.’ He started up the ladder.
The bridge must be in the tit on top, Taro thought, looking around again.
Nual wandered over to the lounge area and fired up the holo. Over her shoulder she said, ‘If you are tired, you can rest in the spare cabin. I’m sure Jarek won’t mind.’
Taro felt anything but tired. ‘So you’ve been on this ship before, then?’ he asked.
‘Yes, although it was some time ago.’ She straightened and pointed to one of the doors. ‘The spare cabin is through there.’
Taro felt like he was being sent to his room . . . except she wasn’t
sending
him, was she? She was just
asking
him. If she really wanted him to go away, he wouldn’t be given any choice in the matter. He decided to risk it. ‘Actually I thought I’d look around. If Jarek won’t object.’
Nual looked up at him and smiled. ‘I’m sure he won’t.’ After a moment she added, ‘I am sorry I did not tell you about Jarek. I never expected to meet him again, so I didn’t see the need. He is a good man, Taro.’
Her apology threw him. ‘Yeah, I know: he didn’t have to help us.’ In fact Taro suspected he was already regretting his offer. ‘I was wondering, though, about him and Elarn.’
‘What about them?’
‘You said something about her forgiving him, and he wasn’t in her will, even though he’s her brother. Whatever they fell out over, it must’ve been pretty major.’
Nual looked away. ‘It was,’ she said.
‘D’you know what it was then?’
‘Aye,’ she said, ‘I do. It was me.’ She turned her attention back to the tech, and Taro took the hint. He felt horribly confused: annoyed at Nual and Jarek for leaving him out, and at himself for being annoyed, and for reminding Nual about bad stuff in her past.
After a few moments he decided to follow his first plan and explore the ship. He found the spare cabin, and Jarek’s - it was obvious which was which from the differing levels of mess - and he found where to wash and where to shit and where a whole load of stuff was stored. The only door that didn’t open when he approached was the one halfway down the corridor between the main room and what he now realised was the airlock.
He went back to Nual, who told him it was the cargo-hold. He didn’t really need to see it, but Nual added, ‘I will ask Jarek to put you on the ship’s security system. Wait there, I’ll see if he can do it now.’
She stood up, stretched, and flew up the ladder, disappearing into the bridge. After a moment she called back down, ‘Taro, go up to the iris scanner on the cargo-hold door and look into it for a minute. It’s the little green light.’
Taro did as she said. ‘Nothing’s happening,’ he muttered to himself, then, ‘Oh wait—’ as the door opened.
The emptiness of the hold was quite a contrast to the rest of the ship, and the air was cold enough that his breath steamed. As the door closed behind him he turned in panic, until he spotted the iris-scanner on this side and proved he could open it again. Then he had a look around.
From the shelving around the sides, the hooks welded to the floor and ceiling, and the straps, Taro guessed Jarek usually carried a fair amount of stuff, though he couldn’t actually see anything that looked like cargo. Further round he found a much bigger door on the outside wall, next to which were the only two items being transported. One was a stasis chamber, or comabox, as the tourists they’d met had called it. The ones they’d used on the starliners had been smaller and smarter than this, more like sealed-in techno-beds. They’d had to sign waivers, due to the tiny risk that they might wake up with brain damage, or even not at all, but Nual had assured him that stasis was a better option than being conscious in shiftspace. Looked like Jarek only had the one; he wondered what would happen when the time came to make a transit.
The other item was a box about a metre square. The screen on the side sprang to life when Taro touched it, displaying some sort of listing. He sat cross-legged in front of the box and traced the words with one finger. Several were repeated: they weren’t ones he knew, but they weren’t that long either, so with a bit of time he should be able to work them out—
‘You can take a look if you like.’
Taro jumped, banging his knee on the box. He thought briefly about standing up as normal, then flexed his legs
just so
to activate his flight implants, uncurled and rose to float a little above the floor. He looked down at Jarek, trying to pretend he hadn’t been startled. ‘I thought you were getting us out of here.’
‘We’re on our way to the beacon. It’ll be a few hours yet, so I thought I’d come and see how you were settling in. You’ll probably want to get some sleep soon, given it’s after midnight local time.’
Taro had expected to feel the ship take off, though when he thought about it that didn’t make sense. ‘Won’t they be suspicious, what with you cutting and running like this?’
‘Possibly. I’m relying on being gone before anyone I haven’t bribed works out we were at the cliff-house.’