Sparks in Cosmic Dust (8 page)

“Trust. I vote trust,” Solomon joked. “Boo sucks to greed. Long live solidarity. Sorry, Grace.”

“So be it, chicks. Let’s hope you can teach me a thing or two. Now—” after checking all around them for eavesdroppers—twice, three times—the old woman plunged a bony hand inside her jumper and retrieved a plastic medicine bottle hanging on a necklace against her bosom, “—I
trust
you can all keep a secret.”

The others affirmed with wide eyes reflecting the glow of drum-fire embers, while Varinia offered an enthusiastic nod. She had to hand it to the old woman. For all her cynicism, she commanded a measure of wonder, not least by her disarming charisma, the product of curdled charm and a prickly-but-fun sense of absurdity. She was the unsavory aunt whom everyone else avoided but you secretly loved hanging out with.

“In this bottle is a microdot containing two sets of coordinates.” She closed her fist around it. “The first is the location of Zopyrus, the biggest of four moons around a planet several light-years from here. It’s too far for the regular snatch-and-grab ops. It has been surveyed by satellite—I checked—but the mineral results came back negative. Here’s the good part. As any good prospector knows, you can’t scout properly from the air—surface terrain can be a sly old devil.” She tapped the bottle, lowered her voice to a whisper. “The second map shows the location of a rather special pyrofluvium mine on Zopyrus. Its mountain range consists of several layers, the topmost being corborilium, which plays havoc with standard aerial sensors. So no one else knows about this. It was given to me a while back by a very sick man, a grid-licker just like us, so you can guess his prospecting tale didn’t have a Disney ending.”

“What’s so special about a pyrofluvium mine?” Lyssa asked. “That stuff’s ten-a-clip in any decent hospital.”

“You’re thinking of
pyrofluvial
, the sedative solution that utilizes impure forms of the mineral. I’m talking the absolute purest element—pyrofluvium—tons of it in one place. There’s—”

“They’re the same thing,” the vamp interrupted.

“No, no they’re not. I was the resident doctor at Pont de Rêves for eight years. Graduated
cum laude
at the ISPA Academy. What science qualifications have you got?”

“A thorough and versatile knowledge of blood-letting.” With a glint in her eye, Lyssa slashed her index finger across her throat. “Does that count?”

“Yes. Admirable. Don’t ever tell me my business again.”

Solomon piped up, “You were the Selene doctor? At the
actual
Selene Pageant?”

Grace gave a resigned nod. “Uh-huh. Eight years of mollycoddling prima Godivas. Trust me, the job’s not as glamorous as it sounds. I was fired when one of the girls accused me of slander. Her billionaire daddy even filed suit, insisted his daughter had always been prone to indigestion and wasn’t sick.”

“What was really wrong with her?” Lyssa asked.

“She was pregnant with daddy’s triplets.”

The others laughed blackly, but Varinia cringed. She’d felt that Grace had recognized her right away when they’d first spoken. Had she? Could she? Varinia certainly didn’t remember her at Pont de Rêves, and she’d been through all the official pageant checkups and screenings. Maybe the old woman had already been fired by that time. But even so…it was too close for comfort.

“Pyrofluvium is the stuff they use in energy research, isn’t it?” Clay asked. “Cutting-edge propulsion?”

Grace clicked her fingers during an emphatic hand swipe. “That’s the juice. You’ve just moved to the top of the class, Clay pigeon. ISPA doesn’t advertise the fact, but it’s seriously enamored with this stuff. Word has it pyro even supersedes psammeticum in anti-matter propulsion. In other words, this shit is going to be the shit for generations to come. The pure element is worth billions a ton because it’s so rare. Like snagging a virgin past a hundred zee. That’s one of the reasons they’re shrinking the border—the toffs at ISPA don’t want prospectors and shack-sheiks gaining a stranglehold on the supply of this stuff.
They
want to do the finding and the shipping themselves.

“And before any of you have a brain fart, my maps are encrypted, so robbing me won’t do you any good.
I’ll
key the coordinates into the ship’s navi-computer once we’re en route, and
I’ll
set us down on Zopyrus. Remember, I’m your guarantor. Respect that and we’ve every chance of crossing the zee line in ten months with an absolute fortune.”

“Why’s it have to be ten months?” Lyssa queried.

“’Cause that’s when my buyer packs up and retires across the zee border. And trust me, there’s no one else out here will know how to shift pyrofluvium, not in the quantities I’m hoping for.

“Now, down to clips,” the old woman added. “I’ve got a little over four thousand stashed away. Based on the fact that you’re: a) not dumb, b) still listening, and c) still here on Kappa Max, I have to assume that each couple can put up a similar amount. Am I right?”

No response.

Grace rolled her eyes. “Come on, people. I’m laying all my cards on the table. A good start would be for everyone to ante up and hold nothing back. Begin as you mean to go on. If you don’t take the risk, you won’t make the gain. Yadda-yadda. Lyssa?”

The vamp stopped chewing her lip long enough to answer, “Three plus change.”

“Good. Solomon?”

“Three.”

Smart lad. Matching the other couple’s stake while keeping plenty in reserve. Varinia wanted to kiss him for being a loyal card player…and for being smoking hot to boot.

“Okey-cokey, that’s ten. At least.” Grace winked at Varinia, her wrinkled old face sly and all-seeing. “Enough to get us where we need to go. We’ll have to be frugal, though. Now go talk it over while I get some kip. An old bird needs her nest time. Tomorrow, we start buying supplies.”

“Um, what about a ship?” Clay caught Grace before she laid her head on the pillow. “Where do we get a ship for under ten—?”

“Let me worry about that.” The old woman winked at their skeptical glares through the gloom. “Let’s just say I’ve been waiting for this opportunity for some time. And the previous candidates have been, shall we say, less forthcoming.” She sank, snuggled under her blankets. “But we’ll be fine. Just dream of piles of glittering pyrofluvium growing bigger and bigger…and bigger.”

After dragging their two beds back to their original spots behind the pillar, Solomon said, “I would’ve talked it over with you first but…I think we need this. If you want out, though, we don’t have to—”

“No, you did good. It’s either take this trip or keep our heads down in here indefinitely. I don’t fancy our chances of lasting ’til the evacuation, do you? No, this is a stroke of luck. Grace is a tough old bird. We’ll be fine.” She treated him to a grateful kiss. A strange bristling sensation in the pit of her stomach distracted her, drew her free.

“Lovely,” came Solomon’s verdict, but she was already looking in the opposite direction, to where the unusual sensation seemed to be tugging her. Across the aisle to the new couple, about whom she and Solomon ought to know more. The girl was a feisty vamp, sure. But what about
him?
Clay. The enigmatic partner who, she had to admit, intrigued her more than a little.

Two stalls shy of the annex bay doors, Clay checked the oxygen reading on his cuff dial. A little over an hour remained in the temp-tank he’d hired from the market rep. No matter, he was almost done. The only items left on his shopping list were the handguns and target rifles—ten of each. And going off the veritable arsenal on display at the next stall, he was spoiled for choice. He took a sprightly step and had to grip his trolley tether before his feet left the ground in the lower gravity. The annex was in a sorry state. Neither its grav generator nor air-conditioning system worked, and its damaged glass roof was checkered with green sealant splodges. Yet, many of Kappa’s most valuable black-market commodities could be found here, and security reigned supreme—the vendors all paid toward communal surveillance, entry and exit scanners, and undercover security personnel.

“Fella, you seen this girl anywhere?” A barrel-chested man with a hook nose barged in front of Clay, shoving an ID scanner in his face.

“No.”
Hey, wait a goddamn minute…

“You sure? Reward’s a good ’un if you put the collar on ’er.”

Clay studied the digital profile and faked a squint. His auto-pilot brain suddenly ground into manual high gear. He was ninety-five percent certain the woman in the photo was Dixie, the urchin girl from Cody’s, sans grime. “I reckon I’d remember seein’
that
broad.” He overplayed a suck-bait drawl. “Who is she?”

The brute moved on without responding. Clay ghosted midstride. The urge to drop everything and race back to Cody’s was mighty tempting. Losing Dixie might put an end to the entire expedition, so he had to warn her. And there was something else—the woman in the photo was an absolute stunner, far and away the best-looking girl he’d seen on Kappa Max. If it really
was
Dixie, and someone wanted her this badly, she might be a dangerous liability.

Hmm, but no more than his Lyssa.

He shrugged. What was he worried about? Grace already had their transport set up. As soon as the other bloke, Solomon, returned with the rest of the supplies, they could depart. He needed Lyssa with him right now. Her blend of tigress, dark sexuality and mercurial mood swings had certainly kept him on his toes. But there was something oddly addictive about her company. It reminded him of life before Ladon, before the nightmares, when he’d gone after the things he wanted—women in uniform, quick promotion and enough clips to one day buy his own homestead and start a family—with no apologies. To her credit, Lyssa never did anything by halves. She had passion, vitality, a total disregard for others’ opinions of her. And she’d probably tell him to grow some balls and stop sweating over the Wanted: Lost Kitten ad he’d just had thrust in his face.

“All right there, mate?” The gun seller, a tall, bearded man wearing thick-rimmed glasses inside his mask and a warm Klondike hat, sprang up from his deckchair.

“Yeah. I’m after ten standard target rifles—anything under Raconteur power—and ten handguns, round about the Webley 96 range. Plenty of ammo.”

“’Course. You’ll be wantin’ RAF-AO in the rifles, I’m guessin’. We’ve got marine surplus handguns, Webley 98s, Ares T-11s, Pau-Tans—”

“Good. I’ll take ten RAF-AO rifles and ten T-11s. How much?”

“Comes to three-’undred-and-sixty clips, and I’ll give you twenty-five percent off your ammo.”

A cold, wringing sensation in his stomach tugged Clay round to face the far end of his market aisle. The barrel-chested goon was busy questioning shoppers and stall traders alike near the entrance. Another man joined him from the next aisle, brandishing an identical ID scanner.
Son of a bitch.
How many more were there? One on his own would take all week to reach Cody’s, but what if they were all over Kappa Max? What if someone very influential was behind this? A shack-sheik perhaps—and Dixie was one of his wives, an escapee from his harem?

“Call it four ’undred clips,” the gun seller reminded him.

“’Kay.” Clay paid the man and they stacked the weapons onto his double trolley. When they finished, Clay threw a tarp over everything and tied it into place, hiding his goods from prying eyes. Lastly, with his pencil he ticked
10 each: target rifles and handguns
off his shopping list. He double-checked the other items to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, for any oversight now might prove fatal later on.

Check.

It had been a chore finding everything on such a meager budget, but no one had asked him what it was for or where he was headed. Smart businessmen. He cursed the trolleys’ intelligent motor for not having a faster gear—he had to reach Dixie but quick. But at least no one would look twice at a down-and-outer trudging alone through the streets. They might if he ran.

Flop-port J.

Makeshift launch pads with no gangway and only a small loading bay nearby were automatically labeled
flop-ports.
They existed all around the deep space settlements, often two hundred yards or more from building perimeters, owing to safety—launch blasts were destructive at closer range. To load or unload a ship from one, its crew had to don spacesuits and bound out into the low-g wasteland, back and forth, back and forth from the loading bay, usually having only trolleys to help them carry their freight. For long-haul flights, if a significant tonnage had to be transferred, the process might take days.

Clay dropped his trolley tether and sprinted to Grace, who was propped against the bay’s inner doors observing Lyssa and Solomon as they led an overladen trolley apiece out across the asteroid’s gunmetal surface to the flop-port.

“We’ve got trouble.” He planted his outstretched hand on the window next to her. “Hey, where’s Dixie?”

She shot him a puzzled glance. “I left her at the corral. Why?”

“I thought you ladies weren’t splitting up. Solomon was adamant about it, and I think I know why.”

“What’s eating you, sunshine?”

“There were at least two gobshites quizzing people at the market. They brandished a woman’s picture, and I’m almost certain it was Dixie, only…she was a goddamn knockout model…not the grid-licker we’ve seen.”

“How sure are you?”

“Ninety-five percent. I wouldn’t swear an oath but it does all add up—anyone with three-thousand clips staying the night at Cody’s is hiding from something. I should know. And she’s clearly bending over backward to de-glam herself—her face is blacker than a chute sweep’s. Who do you suppose she is?”

Grace’s wrinkled face remained as stone. “I have my suspicions, but as long as she’s paying for her stake, she has a cot on this ship.”

“What if those assholes get here before we’re ready?”

“Did you get everything on your list, sunshine?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Then we’re ready. Guns make more noise than errand boys.”

“What? Fight? Weren’t you a beauty-pageant doctor?”

She raised an eyebrow. “And you thought that
wouldn’t
make me homicidal? Don’t sweat it, sunshine. Everyone out here is running from something. I’ll go get our Dixie. When the others return, tell them I said they need to help you load your trolleys. ’Til they get to know me better, I might as well abuse their respect.” She winked, patted the hard bulge in her shorts pocket—some kind of handgun—then hurried away as agilely as anyone Clay had seen past middle age. Grace Peters had an extremely trim figure. Looks-wise, she no longer stood up to close scrutiny, but from a distance she might easily be mistaken for a woman of half her age and twice her beauty.

At the very least, and like the woman she was rushing to save, there was a great deal more to Grace than met the eye.

For all the ingenious terrain vehicles and artificial intelligence loaders and scouters lined up around the circular silicone corral, Varinia had to be content with the budget items on her itinerary. Two all-terrain trolleys, four pack donkeys, and one veteran roly-poly. Grace had had to select the latter—Varinia couldn’t tell one roly-poly from the other—but when it came time to pick the donkeys, she was in her element. Her parents had been ranchers. Her mother had encouraged her to spend free weekends tending the four-leggeds in their stables. A kind of family tradition, stretching right back to the aristocratic Wilcoxes of England’s once-green Midlands. Varinia had loved every minute, and she’d learned to ride her two mares, Lenore and Danai, over two successive summers. When she’d graduated secondary school, Varinia had vowed, no matter what else transpired in her life, to ride every morning she was able.

Thinking back, she cringed. That was the same day the regional Selene modeling scout had approached her with an offer, on the steps of the school, in front of her dumbstruck classmates. That was the last time she’d ever seen Lenore and Danai and the ranch. Her parents had signed the consent form on the spot, and in a matter of hours she’d cried her heart out, alone in her new home—her tiny quarters in the Selene Modeling Academy—never to set foot in her family home again.

In retrospect, it had been the worst day of her life, the curse that came with all great opportunity.

“You see something else you fancy?” the voice in the remote microphone box crackled. The gizmo was mounted on one of three parallel tracks on top of the metal fence. It had followed her every step around the corral. The foreman was probably in one of the tin shacks behind the enclosure. Perhaps he was crippled or infirm with old age—his creaky voice and clipped accent did sound ancient—and could no longer get out of bed to hobnob with customers directly.

“No. I’m almost done. Thanks.” She dipped into her credit purse and reckoned she had two hundred clips, ballpark, remaining from the expedition funds. Hmm, not enough for this place. She’d already bought the cheapest items on offer.

Turning to leave, she heard a clatter to her left, followed by a
whump
of warping sheet metal, as though something had shifted its weight in one of the thin empty cubicles arrayed along the entry lane.

As she neared, one of the cubicles shuddered—insistent scraping, followed by another
whump,
then the unmistakable high-pitched
neigh-eigh-eigh
of a horse.

For real?
It seemed to be calling to her. She peered through the slender grid window and her breath caught. Two ill-shod hooves slammed against the reinforced glass. When they fell, she gazed upon a magnificent black mare, whose tantrum now seemed to make perfect sense. The cubicle was far too small for such an athletic-looking animal. She had not been well-kept—her coat was mangy and her mane a-tangle, not to mention her fidgety knees, signs of thirst and exhaustion—but Varinia gasped at the mare’s physical proportions. She was an absolute stunner, most likely an Arabian.

Why wasn’t she for sale in the corral? If someone had already purchased her, what was she doing cramped between a dozen empty freight cubicles? Unless…no, they couldn’t be
disposing
of her!

Varinia raced to catch up with the microphone box doing its circumnavigation. “Hey, stop a minute. I need to ask you something.”

It halted. “You again. What can I do for you now, darlin’?”

“The black mare—what’s her story?”

“Damaged goods. Won’t pull nothing. Not much use out here if she won’t pull nothing. Don’t know anything more about her apart from she’s space dizzy.”

“She’s disoriented?”

“Yeah. That’s called space dizzy out here, miss. She ain’t no good to no one unless she pulls when you tell her.”

Varinia wanted to choke the bastard voice box. How dare these suck-baits treat an Arabian racer like a pack pony! Didn’t they know she’d been selectively bred from ancient times to be groomed, shown off, ridden in exotic races, and generally coddled like royalty?

Hmm, what if they honest-to-goodness
didn’t
know? Suck-baits out here dealt in practical machines and obedient beasts of burden. Perhaps the mare had been shipped around between colonies so much, been dealt a brutal, impatient hand so often, they’d hammered this space dizziness into her. Maybe they were disposing of her because she had no practical use and they had no idea of her true value—a few hundred thousand clips, if she was unmodified.

“How much do you want for her?” Varinia gripped her credit purse and held her breath.

“Come again, darlin’? You say you want her?”

“Uh-huh. How much?”

“Good Lord…let see, we paid four thousand. You can have her for two. By all means, she’s yours for two.”

She felt like screaming for joy. Her very own mare, rescued from oblivion, and for a bargain. This expedition was suddenly the most exciting prospect she’d encountered since her arrival years ago at Pont de Rêves, the Selene finals resort. There was treasure waiting to be gathered, a new world to be explored, a gorgeous man to make love to, and now this—her own legendary horse to ride into the sunset. To hell with what the others said. She’d pay out of her own hard-earned money and they’d have to like it.

“Done,” she said. “I’ll take ten months’ worth of food as well. Can you ship her over to flop-port J with the rest?”

“Sure thing, darlin’. Just pay my man on your way out an’ he’ll arrange everything.”

“Thanks.”

“Safe journey, darlin’.”

Varinia sprouted a grin she couldn’t conceal.
If only he knew…

“You, come with me.” Grace yanked Varinia’s dirty mack. The old woman panted, out of breath, but it didn’t stop her jogging back along the empty street she’d already traversed at an impressive clip to reach Varinia.

“What’s this about?” Varinia winced as her second-hand shit-kickers rubbed the skin off her heel. Solomon had bought them for her after fleeing El Oso Negro, but this was the first time she’d run in them.

“Your alter-ego is on the wanted list,” Grace explained.

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t play dumb. It doesn’t matter to me what you’ve done, but I’ll not have my intelligence insulted. Quick, up the side alley. This is a shortcut.”

“
Wait.
” The bastard boots were killing her. She wrenched the magno-laces free and tore the boots off, flinging them with venom at alien graffiti on the alley wall. “So what do you know about it?”