I stepped behind the screen and waited
while Jolly Ivan studied an image of my skeleton and the few metal objects I
carried. He rotated his index finger slowly, instructing me to turn in front of
the scanner while he watched with a concentration that told me he knew what he
was doing. Ivan recognized the synthetic bone replacements in my left shoulder,
right shin and three ribs. It was the kind of high quality reconstructive
surgery only the military or the very wealthy had access to.
“You got a lot of new bones,” he
growled in a heavy
slavic
accent.
“I survived an orbiter crash,
years ago.” It was a lie of course. A detailed bone scan would have shown the
wounds were sustained at different times, but that was beyond the capabilities
of Ivan’s antique scanner. If he told me to strip naked, he’d find no scars. The
EIS’ skin regeneration therapy was flawless. Fortunately, the last thing Ivan
wanted to see was me naked.
Finding no weapons, listening
devices or any trace of the organic network threading my body, he nodded towards
the rear and returned to his card game. I walked through to the back door and
knocked. Presently, a door panel dilated revealing a face that could have belonged
to Jolly Ivan’s twin. The doorman received a bored nod from Ivan, then let me
into a large, dimly lit room suffocating under a pall of smoke. Men and women
gathered around small tables talking, drinking, shooting stims and occasionally
laughing, all the time watching wall screens full of numbers, spinning wheels and
a few games of chance even I didn’t recognize. The surface of every table was
fitted with info panels for placing bets, reading the latest odds, and conducting
whatever business they were in while they waited for the next game to run its
course.
I found an empty table, ordered
an expensive drink and placed several large bets, then used the screen to
access the city’s datanet. According to my threading, Ivan’s gambling den was
renowned for protecting the privacy of its high rolling patrons, including not
tracking their online activity. It was why the clientele preferred Ivan’s to
the licensed casinos.
Thanks to Lena, I had a high level
authorization code giving me access to the city’s most secure areas which I
used to run a series of searches starting with Sarat. He’d been a frequent
visitor to the city over the past few years, although the details of the ship
he used and his present location were blocked. Apparently Lena’s authorization
code wasn’t quite high enough to pry into Sarat’s personal affairs.
My second search found there were
more than a hundred Orion Arm non-humans in the city, mostly Ascellans,
Minkarans and Carolians, but thankfully not a single Mataron. Hades City had no
record of any Matarons ever having visited the city, which was either
reassuring if true, or an indication the Matarons had hacked the city’s datanet.
Next, I checked Ameen Zadim’s
status. Not surprisingly, he was being investigated by UniPol for a variety of
nefarious activities. Considering he was more use to me out of jail than in, I
wiped his file. Zadim would never know I’d made his problems go away, because
being the inquisitive little scoundrel he was, he’d not rest until he figured
out how I’d accessed the city’s inner sanctum.
Finally, I ran a search on Marie.
There was no record of her, yet I’d seen her using her Trader ID at the
Exchange. Those tags were issued by the Beneficial Society with encryption so
complex, only the EIS could crack it. It had to be that way. The consequences
for interstellar trade of not knowing who you were dealing with would be
catastrophic because no contracts could be enforced, no trader could be
trusted. Could she possibly be using someone else’s ID? That was not only
illegal, it would get her blacklisted by the Society – which was far worse.
“I hope you know what you’re
doing, Marie,” I whispered to myself.
I waited until my two bets were
complete, losing on both, then caught the tube back to the spaceport. At Gate
E-71, I touched the door sensor. While it was confirming my identify, my sniffer
spotted two contacts moving towards me. It quickly matched their engineered
DNA, warning that they were augmented muscle-jobs, tough as they come with at
least twice my physical strength. Their bulky bio-engineered muscle would make
them slow, but if they got one hand on me, I’d never get free.
The gate unlocked as I stepped
sideways a moment before a metal dart struck the bulkhead with a dull thud and
fell to the floor. There was a wet spot where the dart’s tip had hit, telling
me it was an injector, not an electro-paralytic. If I hadn’t moved, it would
have taken me straight between the shoulders.
Turning towards my attackers for
a first look, my sniffer illuminated them in my mind’s eye with red threat
indicators. I was two meters tall, yet they both towered over me with upper
body muscle that threatened to burst out of their tight fitting, elasticized
black shirts. If it was a uniform, it wasn’t one I recognized. They had no
insignia, no markings of rank. One had a shaved head and a faded scar over his
left eye; the other a buzz cut and a massive, protruding jaw. Above the threat
indicators, my sniffer flashed a tiny green marker indicating neither were on
the mad-and-bad list.
I DNA locked them both and rolled
sideways as Scarface fired a second sleep-dart, narrowly missing my shoulder. He
might have been a lumbering beefcake, but he had good aim and I was unarmed. I
guessed they were off a ship inside the spaceport, as they couldn’t have got
the dart gun into the berthing area through port security.
Scarface slipped a silver dart
into his little pistol, while Jawbones stomped towards me, being careful not to
block his companion’s line of sight. His move told me they were a team,
contract muscle used to working together. Not being on any wanted list meant they
were either nobodies, or smarter than they looked.
I edged sideways, keeping Jawbones
between me and his companion’s dart gun. He clenched his fist and took a deep
breath while still three steps away, telegraphing what was coming. He charged
forward like an angry rhino, completely confident of his physical superiority –
and completely ignorant what ultra-reflexed modding could do.
I froze, feigning fear, raising
my hands as if to protect my face while offering him my head on a plate. He
took the bait, throwing the punch with enough force to crush bone if it connected.
Halfway through delivering his slow motion pile driver, I darted forward,
slipped effortlessly under his trunk-like arm and drove a hard, precise punch
into his lower abdomen. My blow had half the power of Jawbones’ haymaker, but I
hit my target precisely while his bulging arm flailed uselessly through the
air.
Jawbones coughed, unable to
breath, then took a step forward and swung his other arm wildly at me, ignoring
the pain. He might have been a lumbering elephant, but he was tough. Most opponents
would have been on their knees, gasping for air, not coming back for more. He
pivoted off his trailing foot as his fist chased me, so I kicked his advancing leg
just enough to throw him off balance and send his second pile driver sailing
over my head. Before he knew what was happening, I spun and snap-kicked him in
the groin with the same foot that had taken out his leg. Jawbones doubled over,
his forehead begging for an elbow strike that would have finished him, but my sniffer
was flashing a warning that Scarface had shifted position and was now behind me.
Ignoring Jawbones’ gift
coup de grace
, I rolled away from the
crippled muscle-job, expecting to see a dart flash over my head, but Scarface
was marginally smarter than his bonehead partner. He held fire, anticipating my
roll, firing only as I came to my feet.
For a muscle-job, his timing was
almost perfect.
The dart caught me below the
collar bone. I ripped it out fast, but my left shoulder and arm were already useless.
Whatever the dart was loaded with, it was strong stuff – and fast acting! I
glanced at the open gate leading to the
Silver
Lining
, already certain I wouldn’t make it.
Suddenly, my head swam and my
legs turned to jelly. Genetically resequenced balance or not, I stumbled and
was out before I hit the floor.
* * * *
I awoke in an office, lavishly decorated in
an ancient nautical theme. Pictures of old sailing ships adorned the walls
above intricately detailed models of Spanish galleons in transparent vacuum
cases. A marlin was mounted on one wall behind a polished mahogany desk and, even
though they’d been extinct for eighteen hundred years, it looked real. Most
impressive of all was the wall sized mural to my right, depicting an ancient
sea battle that was more a chaotic melee than a fleet action. From the way
light reflected off the brush strokes, it appeared to be an actual painting
rather than a projection.
“It’s an original,” a smooth,
Hispanic voice said behind me.
Pressure fields secured my wrists
and ankles to a brown leather chair, telling me this wasn’t the first time
guests had been entertained in this way. “Looks stolen.”
A well dressed man in his early
fifties strolled into my line of sight. He had slick black hair, a neatly
groomed triangular beard and wore a single sparkling diamond in his left ear. Even
more ostentatious diamonds adorned his fingers.
“It’s called the
Battle of the Albrolhos
,” he said. “The
Spanish and Portuguese defeated the Dutch off the coast of Brazil in 1631. An
ancestor of mine commanded a ship there.” He approached the mural, studying it
closely before pointing. “I believe it was that one. Later, he become a
Captain-General in the Spanish Empire.”
“Impressive,” I said, blinking
away the drumbeat in my head.
“Not really. Phillip IV later
executed him for treason.” The man shrugged. “Every great family has a black
sheep.”
He was obviously the wealthy
individual Sarat had been waiting for. He looked like a cross between a
synth
-dealer and an aristocratic art collector. I scanned
and locked him immediately, but his DNA didn’t show up on the Orion Arm’s most
wanted list. My sniffer told me there were two more signatures behind me, the
same two who’d tagged me outside the
Silver
Lining’s
berth, while my threading’s listener picked up the hollow click of
footsteps on deck plating outside the room.
My host poured a dark red liquid
into a wine glass. “Forgive the impolite manner in which my associates brought
you to this meeting, Captain Kade, however, I wasn’t sure you’d come
willingly.”
“Next time, try asking.”
“I would, but I so dislike being
disappointed.” He sipped his drink. “And from what I’ve heard, you’re not a
particularly agreeable individual.”
“You don’t know me. I’m very
agreeable, except when I’m jabbed in the neck with a sleep dart.”
“Well, as you and I have no past
disagreements, let us start as friends.”
“This is how you treat your
friends?” I glanced meaningfully at the glowing fields clamping me to the chair.
“Acquaintances then, or are we adversaries?”
When I didn’t respond, he said, “My name is Arturo Salbatore Vargis and I have
the honor of being the captain of this ship, the
Soberano
.”
“Never heard of you.”
Vargis nodded understandingly. “I
don’t normally come out this far. This little rock may be fertile ground for
men such as yourself, but I find there are few opportunities worthy of my
interest.”
Impressive, a boast and an insult
in one. “And yet, here you are, among us low life bottom feeders.”
“Yes, and we both know why.”
“Do we?”
“Come Captain, I know you asked
Ameen Zadim to find Sarat for you.”
“Who?”
“Zadim’s people have been
scouring the city, asking questions, prying where they shouldn’t. Did you
really think no one would notice?”
Zadim was sneaky enough to ensure
his people wouldn’t draw attention to themselves. The only way Vargis had
picked up my trail was if someone working for Zadim had sold us both out.
“What people notice isn’t my
concern.”
Vargis put his drink on the
table. “Let me make this easy for you, Captain Kade. I have a proposition for
you, one that does not involve Mukul Sarat.”
“If you’re talking money, you’re
talking my language.”
“I knew we could come to an
understanding,” Vargis smiled as if the deal was already done. “There is a
contract waiting for you at the Exchange. Two hundred and fifty thousand
credits to deliver a confidential dispatch to Zen Tau Base. No detours, no
delays and you leave immediately. Oh yes, and Zadim forgets all about Sarat.”
Ten times the going rate to carry
mail to a rundown Chinese outpost over three hundred light years away at the
edge of nowhere? It would take three months to get there, fully bubbled with no
stops.
Vargis leaned forward. “Once you
make the delivery, keep going. You will not return to this region of space for
. . . let’s say a year after you reach Zen Tau.”
“That’s a generous offer,” I said
thoughtfully, as if considering the deal, “except Zen Tau is Yiwu space and I
don’t speak Chinese.” The Yiwu, the Obligation, had been the dominant Chinese
organized crime syndicate since the early 45th century, and I was on less than
friendly terms with them.