Pilgrim (21 page)

She strode over to the ship’s depth
detector.

“Bad news, Cal,” Nova said.

“What now?”

“The depth detector is damaged. In fact,
that may even be why they crashed here in the first place.”

“Crusader won’t be happy,” Cal warned.

“I know, just promise her that if she
manages to get us to Zyx, I’ll buy her a nice new detector with the
money we’ll make.”

There was a pause as Cal relayed the
message. “She said she knows just where to stick your
mushrooms.”

Nova chuckled. “It’s not my fault the colony
ship had the same faulty equipment we have.”

“What about the other supplies?” Cal
asked.

“There’s heaps of fuel here, that’s the
important thing. No sign of the special object though.”

“Affirmative.”

A heavy weight formed in Nova’s stomach as
she rummaged through the engine room and then out into the pilot’s
pod. There was no sign of the warp converter and it was the entire
reason she’d come to Taive in the first place.

She ripped the covers off of the control
dashboard in a desperate attempt to find the converter. A piece of
metal caught her finger and slashed it open, sending a spray of
blood across the controls. She hurled the metal casing to the side
and leant over the panel. Hidden amongst a ball of wires was a
metal stand with claw-like hooks. There was no mistaking the
attachment where the warp converter should have been. The holder
was empty.

“Grishnak!” Nova bellowed, slamming her
injured fist into the controls and sending more blood across the
floor. “Cal, it’s gone. The bloody thing is gone.”

She tried to keep her voice steady but
frustration boiled in her chest and choked her words.

“Get what you need. I’ll see if I can find
out where it’s gone,” Cal said.

Nova stomped out of the pilot’s pod, doing
her best to keep her face neutral. She didn’t want the other
hunters to know what she’d been looking for, or how angry she was
that it wasn’t there.

Instead, she hurled equipment into her bag.
There were tools and little pieces of machinery that would
definitely come in handy. She had to squeeze and push them into her
bag to make them fit alongside the mushrooms. Her bag was glowing
with almost as much brilliance as her glowball.

“Jackpot,” Gus said as he walked into the
engine room to join Nova.

“Yep, depth detector’s damaged though,” she
said, trying to keep her voice light.

“Damn,” he replied.

Gus strolled around the engine, examining
the parts. His muscles rippled as he tested some of the piping and
connections.

“What do you need piping for?” Nova
asked.

“My ship was damaged in an asteroid belt.
That’s why I got a ride with Freya. Figure I can probably fix it
with the stuff here.”

“Cool,” Nova said, examining the
supplies.

“There’s a bunch of stuff down here I could
use. I think I’ll be making a few trips.”

“Me too, we’ve found ourselves a gold
mine.”

She left her bag on the floor of the engine
room and went to the spare parts cabinet. It was a massive storage
unit which took up an entire wall. She heaved at the door and it
slid open.

Gus whistled.

Nova’s eyes scanned over the collection.
They were definitely the first bounty hunters to make it here and
have enough time to scavenge the ship. There was a fortune in this
place, even if it didn’t have the one thing she really needed.

“Aart. Orion. You probably want to get in
here and claim your share,” she called over her shoulder. A moment
later, the two men hurried through the door. Their eyes widened as
they came to stand next to Nova.

“Think I found your vat of bacteria,” Gus
said. He stood over a metal vat that came up to his chest. He held
the lid in his hand and peered over the edge with his nose crinkled
and his brows drawn together.

“Well it can stay there,” said Nova.

She went to the cabinet and sifted through
the many supplies. There were a lot of things she wanted, but the
more she took, the more she’d have to carry. She grabbed a fuel
canister with each hand.

“All of this and you’re taking fuel?” Aart
said.

She shrugged, “Without fuel I’ll be stranded
here anyway. Besides, I’m planning to make a couple of trips.”

“Ha! Maybe you won’t have to,” Gus said,
pulling out a metal contraption from behind the machines.

“An anti-grav trolley!” Nova said, a grin
spreading across her face.

The simple trolley would hold most things
they wanted and would be a breeze to push through the ship to the
outside world. Nova’s reservations disappeared and she loaded guns,
equipment and fuel onto the trolley.

Aart took some of the more valuable
computing parts. Orion was similarly stacking high-end equipment
into a box. Gus was already at the weapons cabinet. He slung rifles
and pistols across his front and back. Guns poked out in a circle
from his belt.

It took a while. Eventually they were all
loaded up like a Hasard camel train. Nova led the way uphill to the
back of the ship. Gus was behind her, pushing the trolley. It
rattled under its load but stayed together. The weight of her bag
pulled on her shoulders but it all felt like nothing compared to
the desperate run for their lives. Fair payment she would have
said.

It seemed a lot further than it had last
time when she was being chased by a horde of possessed creatures.
She let out a sigh of relief when she stepped through into the
clearing and saw Sylar parked, waiting and shining in the sunlight.
She breathed deeply of the fresh air and let her arms drop to her
sides. The others came up into the light smiling.

“How long were we down there?” Orion said,
shielding his eyes from the bright glare. “It felt like days.”

“Probably only a couple of hours, time does
weird things in the dark,” Aart said.

They staggered under the weight of their
bags over to Sylar. Gus pushed the trolley until it sat in the
middle of the three ships.

“Every man for himself from here?” Gus said,
hoisting his bag of mushrooms onto his shoulder.

“Just like usual.” Aart nodded and
winked.

“What about Freya’s ship?” Orion asked,
looking over the shiny blue vessel.

“Well seems to me I need a ship to get out
of here and she don’t,” said Gus. His tone was light but he looked
at each of them in turn with a stern expression.

“Fair to me,” Aart said. The others
nodded.

“Good,” Gus said. He trudged to Freya’s ship
and the door slid open. He tossed his bag of mushrooms and the
armload of weapons through the door. They clattered to the metal
floor. He stepped up inside and lifted his hand to them as the door
slid shut behind him.

“Off to make some cash,” said Orion as
swaggered to his own ship, his bounty slung over his shoulders.

“Good hunting,” Aart called after him. Orion
waved and jumped up into his craft.

The whirring of engines overtook the sounds
of the forest. They created gusts of wind which knocked Nova back.
With a blast like a firing gun, the two ships shot up into the sky
and disappeared.

“So do you want a lift back to Crusader?”
Aart asked.

“Thanks,” she said.

She did her best to smile, she had got a
good haul from the colonisation ship but it wasn’t what she really
needed. A ball of disappointment settled in the pit of her stomach
but she forced her mind away from it for the moment.

They walked to Sylar without speaking. Nova
pushed the trolley in front of her. When they reached the silver
ship, the cargo door opened and a ramp extended out. She heaved the
trolley up the ramp and into the main cargo compartment of Aart’s
ship. Each of their bags was slung over their shoulders and they
walked with solid steps, their boots and pants legs still covered
with green slime.

She grimaced.

They climbed up into Sylar’s clean interior
and Aart headed straight for the command chair. Nova slumped down
onto the cushioned seats and breathed a sigh of relief.

“That bad, huh?” Tanguin said. A sympathetic
smile tugged at the corner of her lips.

“You have no idea,” Nova said.

“Well you two stink,” replied Tanguin.

“Tell me about it.”

“Scanners detect foreign material,” Sylar
said as the three of them sat down.

“Don’t worry about it,” Aart said with a
frown.

“What does it mean?” Nova asked from her
position spread out on the couch.

“It probably just picked up the slime,” Aart
said, lifting his shoe to indicate the layer of green goo.

“Oh, of course,” she said, returning to
silence.

“Still though, I’m heading straight for a
shower. And so are you if you want to stay on my ship,” Aart said,
looking down at Nova.

“Yeah I’m going,” Nova said, hauling herself
to her feet.

She trudged through the silver ship and into
the decontamination room; the expensive ship came with everything.
She tossed her bile-covered clothes into the shoot marked
‘incineration’ and before her very eyes a new set of identical
clothes, minus the vomit, slid out of the next shoot over and
landed in a neat pile.

She stepped into the shower cubicle and warm
water splashed down onto her face and arms. She relished in the
feel of the dirt and grime washing away. The water at the bottom of
the shower turned brown under the onslaught of so much filth. She
used handfuls of soap to remove the smell and had to wash her hair
four times before she was happy that there were no slugs hiding
amongst the tangles.

Only then, when she had rubbed her skin
red-raw, did she leave the confines of the shower and pull on the
newly-printed clothes. The clean fabric felt good against her skin
and she walked into Sylar’s main compartment feeling better than
she had since first landing on Taive, despite her disappointment
over the warp converter. She was alive and healthy and there was a
stack of bounty with her name on it.

“So who’s up for some food?” Aart asked as
he stepped around the corner from another bathing pod. He sauntered
to the food generator and punched in a few numbers. His hair was
still wet but his skin glowed clean much like Nova’s.

“Should probably eat something, although I
don’t know if I can after seeing you covered in vomit and slugs,”
Nova said. Tanguin got her usual bowl of purple.

The three of them sat around Aart’s table
eating, just as they had before going down into the caves.

Nova glanced over at Aart as he sunk his
teeth into the red-raw steak. Some juice dribbled out of his mouth
and down his chin. He closed his eyes and smiled as the meat slid
down his throat.

“Good?” she asked.

“The best,” Aart replied without looking up
from his meal.

She turned to her own food but her appetite
had vanished. The meat looked like the bloody remains of Freya’s
corpse and the green vegetables reminded her of the chunks floating
in the creatures’ vomit.

“Everything ok?” Tanguin asked as she lifted
a small spoonful of purple to her mouth.

“Yeah,” Nova said, her mind racing.

“So when are you two heading off this rock?”
Aart said.

“As soon as I can, I can’t wait to get back
to The Jagged Maw,” Tanguin said. “Not to mention start selling my
goods.”

Nova and Tanguin had a standing arrangement.
If Tanguin helped with a bounty, then she got a cut of Nova’s
profit. Today had been profitable for both of them and based on
Cal’s calculations, they’d each get at least two thousand credits
for the mushrooms.

“I’ll drink to that,” Aart said, holding up
an imaginary glass.

“When will you be leaving?” Nova asked,
looking hard at Aart’s face.

Aart shrugged. “As soon as you two get off
of my ship I suppose.”

“Hint received loud and clear,” Tanguin
said, dropping the last blob of purple into her mouth.

“Yeah,” Nova said, her stomach rolling.

She pushed her plate to the side and stood
up. She walked away from the dining table to the corridor behind
Aart, trying her best to keep her footsteps steady even though her
legs felt like jelly. As soon as she was out of his line of sight,
Nova gestured at Tanguin.

Tanguin glanced at her and without so much
as a blink she got to her feet.

“I’ll just use your bathroom first,” Tanguin
said to Aart and hurried to the corridor where Nova was
standing.

Nova grabbed hold of Tanguin’s arms and
pulled her some distance down the corridor. She leant close to
Tanguin’s ear.

“He’s infected,” she whispered. She kept an
eye locked firmly on the end of the corridor for any sign of Aart
but he didn’t come. As she continued to speak, Tanguin’s eyes got
wider. She shook her head in denial but Nova nodded once,
firmly.

They walked back up the corridor and found
Aart’s chair empty, the raw steak gone from his plate.

“Aart?” Nova said, keeping her tone
light.

“In the command centre,” his voice floated
back through the ship.

Nova and Tanguin crept through the
passageway until they came to Aart’s pilot pod.

“Aart, can you give us a lift back to my
ship?” Nova said.

“What? You don’t want to walk?” Aart said,
his brows drawing together.

“I really don’t want to push that trolley
through the forest.”

Aart snorted. “Put that down as the first
time Nova ever asked for help.”

“I wouldn’t call it asking for help,” she
said. “More like making sure all the bases are covered.”

“Call it whatever you want,” said Aart.

“You did offer first,” she said.

“Yes, yes, I’ll take you.”

“Excellent. Whenever you’re ready.”

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN