Pilgrim (14 page)

“Make sure you both check yourselves for
slugs,” Nova said, patting her own hair and body.

“Cal mentioned something about slugs but I
couldn’t understand a thing he was saying. You really need to
upgrade that labourbot, Nova, or at least get another one that can
talk to everyone else.”

“Cal’s just perfect, thank you, and the
slugs are some kind of parasite. Apparently, they’ve attacked
humans before. It’s all pretty hush-hush. Anyway, long story short,
they’ll crawl into your ear, then into your brain and use you like
a puppet.”

“What?” Aart said, jumping from his chair
and patting at his head and clothes. “That’s messed up.”

“Yep,” Nova said with a grin, silently
congratulating herself or making him squirm. “Now if you don’t
mind, I’m going to find your shower.”

Aart waved her in the general direction and
she marched off through the ship. It was at least twice, if not
three times, the size of Crusader and much more luxurious. The
chairs were cushy and everything shone with cleanliness.

The lights set into the ceiling and walls
were bright and showed off all of the features of the ship. Even
the floor felt soft, as if the metal was an illusion and her feet
were being cushioned with every step.

Nova found the shower and went to work
scrubbing the many layers of dirt and grime from her skin. The
filth may as well have been embedded into her very pores.

She took the time to consider her mission so
far. In terms of her greater goal, it was a complete and utter
failure. She’d come to Taive looking for a warp crystal and she
hadn’t even caught a glimpse of it. Her only hope was that it was
tucked somewhere inside the colonisation ship and that she’d find
it the next day.

The only positives of her trip so far was
that she’d survived this long and that the mushrooms would at least
cover some of Crusader’s more urgent repairs. Overall, the outlook
was bleak.

***

“You and Aart seem to get along,” Tanguin
said as she and Nova moved through Sylar towards the dining
compartment. The metal walls ran alongside them and doors led off
to the left and right. Nova had no idea how many rooms the ship
contained, it was definitely more than any humble bounty-hunter
craft should.

“We’ve been friends for a long time,” she
replied with a smile, remembering how they’d first met. She’d
kicked his arse in The Jagged Maw’s Friday night close-combat
tournament..

“Now I can see him being friends. He’s
friends with everyone, well almost everyone. But you hate
people.”

Nova rolled her eyes at Tanguin. “I don’t
hate all people. Look, I’m talking to you right now.”

Tanguin laughed. “I’m sure you just keep me
around to hack into computers for you.”

“You’re right, it would be a lot harder to
keep talking to you if you weren’t so darn useful,” Nova said with
a smile. “But Aart’s genuine, plus we have a similar background, he
usually gets where I’m coming from.”

“That must be nice,” Tanguin said.

“Yeah.”

By then they were at the dining room and
Aart was sitting in front of them. The table was massive, big
enough to fit ten people at least with room to spare. Each of the
chairs was cushioned and a central panel revealed all manner of
cutlery.

“Food generator is over there.” Aart
gestured with his fork. “Pick whatever you want.”

Nova went to the machine. It was a much
newer model than hers; it could probably make things she’d never
heard of.

“Chicken and chips thanks,” she said.

The machine whirred into action and just two
seconds later it dinged to let her know it had finished. She opened
the door and smiled when she saw the steaming heap of chips nestled
around a boneless chicken breast.

She pulled the plate out and carried it to
the table. She took a seat opposite Aart and popped a chip into her
mouth with her fingers.

Tanguin wasn’t far behind with a warm bowl
of purple liquid. It was a kind of nutrient soup preferred by the
Un-Connected. It came in different colours and flavours, and people
usually referred to it by colour. In this case, Tanguin was having
a bowl of purple.

“Exotic,” Nova said with her nose turned
up.

“It’s delicious,” Tanguin said. “Besides,
you try spending the first fifteen years of your life being fed
through a tube and then going to solid foods, it’s a disaster.”

Nova shook her head, yet another problem
Tanguin faced as a first generation Un-Connected.

“I’m with Tanguin,” Aart said. “At least
with a bowl of purple, you know you’re getting exactly what you
need. What does chicken and chips give you?”

“You’re one to talk,” said Nova. “What is
your steak giving you?”

Aart smiled and moved in close to his plate.
He took a long, audible sniff of his food and his smile grew wider.
“Satisfaction.”

“That’s the only way you’re gonna get it,”
Nova said, winking at him.

Aart rolled his eyes and returned to the
hunk of meat sitting in front of him.

“Although,” she added. “I’d say that looks
more like a pile of charcoal than a steak. Why do you insist on
eating everything burnt?”

“It’s not burnt, it’s well-done and it’s the
only way to eat a steak,” Aart said around a mouthful of the
blackened meat.

“So where are you from Aart?” Tanguin asked
as she spooned purple into her mouth.

“My last name should really give it away,”
Aart said, his eyes sparkling. “Goldson. I’m from Goldson, one of
the many and varied orphans.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Tanguin said.

“Don’t be,” replied Aart, “Besides, with
Nova being an orphan of Tabryn and you being first generation
Un-Connected, I think we’re all pretty much in the same orphan
boat.”

Nova’s stomach jolted, Tabryn; that was
where she came from. That’s what the T in her initials stood for.
She forced her expression to stay neutral and her breathing to stay
even. Since her run-in with the Ancients, a whole swath of her
memory, including the name of her homeworld, had disappeared. The
thought of what other things she didn’t remember made her cringe.
She’d been so terrified that she hadn’t dared to ask anyone else to
fill in the blanks, not even Cal. She’d just pushed her anxiety to
the back of her mind, gritted her teeth, and carried on. At least
now one mystery was solved. Now she knew.

“I guess you’re right,” Tanguin said.
“Goldson, are there really mountains made of gold there?”

“Ha! You’ve been listening to too many of
Kero’s stories,” Aart said. “There might be piles of gold in the
overseers’ houses but for us workers, the only gold we see is down
in the mines. And even then, you only see it long enough to load it
onto a truck.”

“I would have thought they’d have bots doing
all that?” Tanguin said.

“The bots do some of it, but they all have
to be low-intelligence. Turns out people were programming them to
steal gold, can’t scan the bots see because of their metal
circuitry. So as a reward for a few people getting creative with
the programming, they cut back all the robotics. Now, most of it’s
done by hand. It’s identical to how they did it last century,
primitive.”

“Sounds like a nice place,” Tanguin said
around another spoonful of purple.

“You have no idea. The conditions are
appalling. How can they justify the overseers and planet
politicians living in mansions when the workers are left to die in
shallow pits and mine cave-ins?”

“Aart, don’t start, she was just being
polite,” Nova said. The last thing she wanted to hear today was
Aart’s famous working-class rant.

“I’m just trying to make sure everyone knows
the truth. Even the Un-Connected can’t be led to believe that
everything is fine in the Resource Sector when it’s definitely
not.”

“It’s not just the Resource Sector,” Nova
said. “Tabryn wasn’t any better and have you seen any of the other
outer clusters recently?”

“I know, I know, it’s the whole quadrant.
It’s like the Human Confederacy has locked us all out of their
special club. It’s not good enough I tell you, and I’m going to do
something about it, just you watch.”

“I’m sure you will. But please, just for
tonight, let’s give politics a rest. Why don’t you tell me how you
and Tanguin came to be riding together to save my life?”

“Oh that’s easy,” said Tanguin. “I was
already preparing to come and save your butt when you called me
earlier. As soon as Cal patched through saying there was something
wrong, I was ready to go.”

Nova smiled and popped another chip into her
mouth. The salty potato taste was delicious. It completely wiped
out the cold and dark of the caves.

“Of course, I wasn’t going to go on my own,
then there’d just be two of us trapped,” Tanguin continued, “And
then who should I see firing up their engines ready to race out
here?”

“I wouldn’t say race,” said Aart, laying
down his knife and fork on his empty plate.

“Hang on, this is in The Jagged Maw?” Nova
asked.

“Yeah,” Tanguin replied. “Where else would I
be?”

“You said you had a night of pleasure lined
up on Vix?” Nova said, narrowing her eyes at Aart.

“A man can dream,” Aart said, holding up his
hands.

Nova snorted and shook her head. She put
another salty chip into her mouth. The chicken was already gone,
leaving a comforting warmth emanating from her stomach.

“Anyway,” Tanguin cut in, “I hitched a ride
and here we are.”

“Well, I’m glad you made it. I really don’t
fancy having my brain taken over by a slug, not today anyway,” said
Nova.

They ate the rest of the meal in
companionable silence.

“So here’s the plan. I’ve got a few people
coming, they’re going to give us a hand,” said Aart.

Nova groaned. “That’s right. Now will you
tell me what people?”

“You know, just a few. Freya, Gus and Orion
are coming with us and Tanguin’s going to stay here and
monitor.”

“That’s what I do best,” Tanguin said.

“Why did you call them in?” Nova said, her
eyebrows drawing together.

The last thing she wanted was to wait around
for a bunch of other bounty hunters who would only cut into her
profits. Plus, the last thing she wanted was more people seeing the
warp converter and asking her questions she didn’t want to answer.
Trafficking illegal mushrooms was nothing compared to the crime of
possessing a Confederacy warp converter.

“We need backup. You saw how many of those
things are down there. No way was I going down there with just you
for backup.”

“I’m worth three of them easily!” she
said.

“Well then it will be like having six of you
at my back, which is fine by me,” Aart replied. He opened a panel
in the wall and pulled out a medium-sized gun. He checked it over
once and then handed it to Nova.

“I can’t believe you didn’t ask me before
calling them,” Nova said, flexing her fingers. They twitched to
hold her own gun again, but for now they would have to put up with
Aart’s old one.

“You called me in to help, that’s what I’m
doing.”

She grunted and went back to examining her
new weapon.

The rest of the night and the next morning
passed in relative silence. The three of them exchanged stories
from past missions and played a few rounds of battle simulation.
The other hunters were late arriving. They were supposed to touch
down in the early morning. It was after lunch and they still hadn’t
arrived.

Tanguin sat in front of Sylar’s main screen.
There were multiple windows displaying different areas outside of
the ship. The early afternoon sun glinted off of the crashed
colonisation ship.

“Incoming,” Tanguin said. “Only six hours
late.”

Nova glanced at the screen in time to see
two smaller craft lower down to the grass next to them. One was
blue and the other was dark grey, almost black. Their metal
exteriors reflected the bright sunlight.

“Time to say hello,” Aart said, shoving his
gun into the holster at his belt.

They jumped out of Sylar and met the other
hunters. Nova had seen them around The Jagged Maw but had never
said more than two words to any of them.

Freya wore a blue suit which covered
everything from her neck to her feet. A hood hung down her back
which she could pull over her face. The suits were the latest
fashion in the Grenville system. Unlike most fashions, the suit
allowed ample movement.

“Long time,” Freya said with a toss of her
hair. It had been modified to resemble a multi-hued rainbow which
shimmered in the sunlight. She tilted her angular face and regarded
Nova with bright blue eyes that matched her suit.

“How’s it going, Freya?” Aart asked,
grinning.

Freya shrugged. “You know how it is, chasing
things, getting paid, the usual.”

Behind Freya came Gus who had hitched a ride
in her blue ship. He was older than all of them with a bald head
and tattoos running up his arms. His left temple had been tattooed
with a circle surrounding a triangle. It was an origin stamp
announcing that he was from the Resources District, Cupron to be
exact.

Gus nodded his head towards Aart and Nova
but that was his only acknowledgement.

The darker ship hissed and a door swung out
and up. Orion jumped down from his ship to the grass with a wide
grin on his face.

“Well, fancy meeting you lot here,” he said,
swaggering forward with one hand on the gun at his waist.

“Let’s just be clear here,” Nova said,
stepping forward. “This is my find. Fifty-percent of the profits
are mine. You guys can do whatever you want with the rest.”

“Ah Nova, I see you’re just as unfriendly as
you look,” Orion said, still smiling.

“Careful Orion, she could shoot your nuts
off before you could blink,” Aart said.

“I surrender.” Orion chuckled and held up
his hands. Nova rolled her eyes and looked around at the rest of
the group.