Three
“So,” said Blade spiritedly, “where’re we headed?”
Snout looked at her sideways, annoyed by her chipper, spunky attitude. He reasoned that he was getting old: ten years ago, and a guest of his would have been too terrified to speak. This one had a spring in her step and a smile on her face, and seemed not at all put off by the poorly concealed weapons they were carrying in their ebony raiments.
“Our employer wood lyg do ’ave a wurd wid jew,” he growled.
“Employer?” she asked, amazed. “You mean someone actually hired you with that nasty speech impediment?”
Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber, the two escorts bringing up the rear, coughed politely in a minor third harmony.
Blade looked around, having no idea where she was. They’d taken a service elevator to a sub-level, and were in one of the secondary maintenance corridors. She still had her weapons, she noticed, which indicated either Guido here didn’t consider her a threat, or the person who wished to speak with her did not consider her an enemy.
Blade resented being dragged off in such a veil of secrecy, especially at the cost of missing her dinner date with Gaerry. She was probing for information with the delicacy of a butcher’s apprentice performing open-heart surgery.
“So, Big-Nose, who’s your employer?” she asked.
This question took the Stout-Snouted One by surprise. He wondered if she was just pulling his chain, or if she somehow didn’t recognize the deathly black uniform. As his employer’s right-hand Hamaddi, Snout knew the purpose of this meeting, and considered the possibility that the obnoxious Caandelenian was just a poorly-chosen middle-(wo)man ignorant of her purpose.
“We’re tayging jew do zee Jn'Tonx.”
“Gin and Tonics!?!” Blade cried with enthusiasm. “Well, why didn’t you say so! I’d like mine easy ice with a twist of lime, please.”
The Hamaddi stopped abruptly, looked around. Fortunately, they were the only ones who had heard the outburst. He glared at her. “I sug-jesd dad jew jange yer adeetewd wen jew meed Mizder Tonx.”
They were outside an unmarked door. On either side were several hover-dollies loaded down with crates: a common sight in the hallway. The only distinguishing feature of this one was a medium-sized rat sitting sphinx-like on top. Snout reached out, ran a taloned finger between is ears. Its nose twitched, but displayed no other reaction. Blade was a little too surprised to comment sarcastically, and instead watched the burly Hamaddi tap in a seven-digit access code on the door loq. Suction-breaking hiss, and he pushed the door in.
He waved her through. Blade stepped into another corridor, lined with man-sized lockers. At the end of it was a Saladrin in black suit armour, a smart gun operative on its shoulder. The weapon was pointed toward the entrance, but its bearer had a relaxed posture. Beyond it was an airloq, open and inviting.
The Tweedle Brothers followed Blade in, and then Snout entered and sealed the door behind him. A seven-digit code relocked the door, and the compression hiss filled the room as it became air-tight. Blade looked at him, and he pointed at the airloq. Both the inner and outer doors were open, and beyond an access port had been extended and secured to the station.
Blade stepped through the airloq, into the tube, and into another airloq. Brightly lit, and sanitary white. A woman in black flight gear with a radio headset looked out at her, nodded, and then disappeared out of sight. Blade stepped through the second airloq, and onto a small shuttle. Snout and the Tweedle Twins followed behind.
Blade saw the woman duck her head through a door, and take the pilot’s chair in the cockpit. She began flipping toggles and pressing buttons. From the vibrations, Blade could tell the engines had been taken off stand-by and primed for flight.
The Saladrin sealed the station’s airloq from outside, and joined them in the craft. A moment later, Snout shut the shuttle’s airloq, and retracted the umbilical connecting them to the station.
“Weer gleer,” he shouted, and the pilot flashed the engines. Through the window, Blade saw the underside of the space station pass by, then shrink as the shuttle pulled away. She frowned, went to the viewport and carefully looked around. Against a black background, she could see the station, and numerous ships docked to it. Several large freighters were floating in orbit, drydock apparatus fitted to the engines. In the distance, she saw another ship approaching, intending to land on the satellite.
The station faded away to half its size before Blade lost interest. She looked around the shuttle’s interior. Small, but comfortable. Snout was watching her silently, the Tweedle Twins sat in chairs and looked at nothing in particular. The Saladrin wasn’t immediately in sight.
Blade went from the window up to the front of the shuttle, and looked into the cockpit. An overhead speaker broadcast Satellite traffic control transmissions.
“We’re in visual range,” the pilot said into her headset, and Blade noticed that her words did not come out over the main frequency. Apparently someone asked her a question, and she replied “will do” before flipping another toggle. The question and her answer also escaped broadcast. Blade nodded: a private channel. She looked through the cockpit window to see what they were in visual range of, and it took her a moment to detect the thin gray sliver floating ahead of them. Turning her attention to the navigation equipment, she saw a qomputer graphic of the object, enlarged with astro-topographic information around it. The schematic was of a very large space yacht. Blade recognized the type from contraband catalogues. Those catalogues were arranged by price, and this yacht model was usually listed on the last page.
“Nice boat,” she said, and the pilot nodded without taking her eyes off her flight controls. She smiled, seemed about to say something to her passenger, instead answered another unheard question with a long string of numbers.
Blade turned around, found Snout still scrutinizing her.
“Just out of curiosity,” she asked, “where are we headed?”
Snout’s thick brow convoluted into a map of deep wrinkles. “I told jew: do zee mizder Jn'Tonx.”
“I’m glad to see that you have a firm grasp of the obvious,” she retorted, “but I’m curious to know where we are going.”
Snout obviously didn’t understand the question. A quick glance through the cockpit window showed the ship was about a minute away; well, she’d find out for herself.
Just then, something buzzed past the shuttle. Or, more accurately, they buzzed past it. Blade only caught a glance of the gray form, but it generally conformed to the shape of a security satellite. Her eyes shifted to the qomputer flight grid, and she noticed several prominent blips set up in a defensive sphere around the ship. The majority of them were positioned between the yacht and the orbiter. Blade looked back out the window, saw the ship in enough detail to see several more shuttles moored to the outside of it. As they passed underneath the giant vessel, she noticed that the engines were off. She breathed a little easier at the sight of that: the ship she was about to board didn’t look like it’d be warping out of the system any time soon.
“Beginning primary docking sequence,” the pilot said, and the shuttle slowed considerably. From the side of the yacht, a circle of yellow light began blinking in two-second intervals. The girl maneuvered the shuttle along side of the craft, flying along the hull until she came parallel to the flashing buoy. Flip of a toggle, and the craft’s inertia came to a stop. She tapped a button marked interqom, and announced “we’re home.”
Blade heard the words echo behind her from hidden speakers, and her four companions got up and headed toward the airloq. Blade made an educated guess that she was expected to join them.
Which is why she began an animated discussion with the pilot.
Snout saw the frosty green light on the airloq control indicating that the extension umbilical had connected them to the yacht, and was about to open the inner door when he noticed his passenger was not by his side like she should be. He snapped his fingers (a terrifying sound, when the talons rubbed together) and pointed at the controls. The Saladrin skittled up to operate them as the Hamaddi went to see what was holding up the human. As the inner door whisked open, he saw Blade conversing with the pilot, who she had learned was named Suzie.
“So Suzie, why’s a good lady pilot like you working for somebody named after a watered down beverage?”
The female pilot shrugged, and replied “Because I’ve never worn fake eyelashes in my whole life, and I never made it on the surfing set, and I never made it on the beatnik set, and I couldn’t cut the groupie set either, and, um, actually I really phuqed up on Europiae3. And now that I’ve done it all over and no one will accept me, I’ve come home to my Gin and Tonic.”
“Led’z go, Az-mow-dee-uz.”
Blade waved goodbye to Suzie, reluctantly turned to her unchosen companion.
“Are we ready?” she asked with a note of irritation. Snout glared at her, motioned to the airloq. With a shrug, she sauntered past and into the connecting tube. Behind, she could hear her four companions following. Ahead, she could see an additional complement of four people awaiting her. They, too, had access to the same tailor who outfitted her companions: lusterless black uniforms devoid of rank or insignia. One of them, a man towering over seven feet tall, addressed Snout respectfully.
“Sir, your presence is required in Tactical. I have been instructed to escort Miss Asmodeus to Mr. Tonx myself.”
Snout nodded, obviously relieved to be relieved of his annoying charge. He headed off in a huff, and Tower politely indicated a bulkhead door in the opposite direction.
“Miss Asmodeus?” he said politely, and indicated the opening with a sweep of his broad hand. Blade shrugged, and headed through the door. She took time to survey her surroundings as she did. As expected, a nicely sized ship, decorated by somebody who was obviously rich and paranoid. The trappings were expensive, and vidio cameras were everywhere.
“To your right, please,” she heard the voice behind her say, and as she complied with the directions, she analyzed the tone. Polite and respectful, but professional. Turning, she saw a small door set in the wall, with a florescent yellow stripe painted along the floor. Tower joined her, and pressed a button on the wall. The door, to her surprise, opened by folding in half: the top half rose into the ceiling, the bottom half sunk into the floor. Beyond was a six by six vestibule, outlined by the continuation of the yellow border. Tower motioned her inside, then stepped in to join her. Her giant companion nodded to the other black-clad men, and pressed a button on the inside of the dumb-waiter. Since she was on the inside, Blade saw the panels slide back into place, and the floor began to levitate upwards. Blade looked up, and could see the very top of the shaft about fifteen meters above her. Rising, she could see the florescent ledges of six more decks. She wondered how many were below her.
Her question was quickly answered, as the elevator passed the next level, and painted to the side was the number 3. They continued rising.
“How much does a boat like this cost?” Blade asked, to make conversation.
“About two year’s of your salary,” Tower replied. Blade wondered if he really knew what her annual income was, figured he probably had a pretty good guess. She wondered how much of Mr. Tonic’s bi-annual salary this had cost, figured it was probably a drop in the bucket.
Blade would have been very interested to know the real circumstances under which Mr. Jn'Tonx had acquired this vessel.
So would GalLaw.
And so would the Build-A-Beta-Boat Qorporation of Beta II Reticuli, the yacht’s manufacturer.
The lift reached the top, and came to a halt with a loud click echoing through the shaft as the deck-plate locked into place. Tower’s head was inches from the ceiling, though experience told him he didn’t need to duck. Looking at the scarce clearing between his scalp and the ceiling, Blade could see a small access panel directly over his head.
Tower reached to the wall, and pressed a button on a panel. Doors opened in the same fashion as before, though on a different wall. Blade stepped into the new hallway, and instantly noticed the air felt much thicker up here, and had the faint smell of rotten eggs. She nodded to herself, and went down the hallway. The few doors she passed all had card loqs and vidio cameras on them. One door, she noticed, had the configuration of an airloq.
End of the hallway, and Tower pulled out an id laminate, ran the magnetic strip through the reader. A moment later, a light turned green, and the doors parted with a soft suction-breaking hiss. Tower pocketed the card, and motioned her inside.
Blade entered a room moodily lit by concealed track lighting Thin shafts of light angled down upon simple display stands. The room’s dimensions were hard to gauge, but the shadows suggested the chamber extended for quite a ways. As she surveyed her surroundings, she presently became aware that her companion had not accompanied her inside.
“Mister Tonx is finishing up a sauna, and will be with you shortly. In the meantime, is there anything I can get you?”
Blade was tempted to say “yeah: some explanations” but decided that she’d get those soon enough. She racked her brain for something really obscure and inconvenient to ask for, but her imagination deserted her.
“No thanks.” she replied, and Tower departed. The door closed, and sealed itself with another suction hiss. After a moment, ventilators efficiently disposed of the methane traces that had snuck in from the hall, but the atmosphere remained dense and rather chilly.
Blade looked around, her gray eyes adjusting quickly to the dim spectrum. Sticking her hands in her back pockets, she passed the time counting vidio cameras. She only saw one, monitoring the door, which convinced her that the room was sentineled by other means. Eventually curiosity got the better of her, and she moved further into the chamber to examine one of the lit displays. Nearing it, she saw it was a marble pedestal with a glassteel casing on top. It held a piece of petrified wood sculpted into a hamaddi’s hand, and each finger sported rings and gold claw caps. Several were caked with crumbling, flaking blood shed centuries ago. Nobility of the old Hamaddic dynasties wore them. The thumb signet ring—as well as the blood on the talon sheathes—once belonged to Qadosh Qadeshim, and the two on the ring finger—as well as the talon sheathes themselves, belonged to his wife, executor, and successor, Quadisha the Pretender.
Blade paid no attention to the gilded tokens from one of the darkest periods of Hamaddi history; she liked the sculpture of the hand. Excellent detail, even down to the individual hair-thin feathers on the back of the hand. No doubt the stone was petrified wood from the Homeworld.
Just as she went to explore the next trophy case (another one that would have been lost on her: the INRI sign from the True Cross) she heard the whisk of suction doors parting, from the far end of the chamber. Looking up, she heard the soft padding of multiple feet delicately making their way across the floor. A moment later, she heard a second set of footsteps, distinctly bipedal, accompanying the first, and then her nose wrinkled at the faint scent of burnt ozone and methane.
With effort, she detected gray movement against black background, and saw the silhouette of a large crab mounting another shadow. Behind it, two slim monoliths moved into flanking positions.
Several moments of silence, and then a soft click, reverberating loudly in the chamber. A track light on the side swung from showing off a stand of crown jewels resting comfortably on a plush red pillow to show off a marble sculpture shifting slightly so the light wasn’t in her eyes. A second click caused two more stationary globes above the squat form to bloom into soft light, revealing her host.
Blade new little about Saladrin atmosphere suits, but she recognized that this one cost a pretty credit. Expensive black material wrapped delicately around it in a custom fit, designed exclusively for leisure. The only accouterment she noticed was a translator, fitted into the glass faceplate. In the delicately swirling gray mists, Blade could see its bulbous head. Eye stalks contemplated her with unreadable, dull blackness. Pale chitinous mandibles rubbed back and forth slightly, then clicked in speech.
"Miss Asmodeus," the translator broadcast in a pleasant tenor. "I trust you had a pleasant journey here?"
“Well, except for the Hamaddi in need of a nose job, speech lessons, and attitude adjustment, I guess you could say that my forced presence here has only been a major inconvenience, yes.”
Eye stalks twitched in such a way that she would have thought the creature was frowning.
"Well, if you'll forgive me," Jn'Tonx said after a moment’s contemplation, "opening pleasantries are a human custom that I have never fully understood or mastered, so we shall forgo them and get to the matter at hand. As a wise Saladrin entrepreneur once said, Time is Money. It would seem that I have plenty of both, and you have plenty of neither."
“If I understand Saladrin philosophy correctly,” Blade said with a slight smile, “it was Drx'K'Cho who said that Time is Abstract, and Money is Ludicrous.”
Without missing a beat, the Saladrin rejoined "and it was no doubt for such asinine statements that it was burned at the Fountainhead five hundred years ago." It moved an appendage, and one of the circles of light bloomed full, showing off an autographed manuscript resting on several slabs of blackened, melted stone. The light quickly dimmed, and it continued, "I prefer to cast my lot with Jis'Klat." Blade wondered if she’d get a glimpse of a token from the noted Saladrin philosopher, but actually those were in Jn'Tonx’s personal quarters. "It said that Time is the only Universal Constant, and Money is the only Universal God."
“You do seem to have a lot of both,” Blade said after a moment. “You’re boring the hell out of me, and it’s costing me a fortune.”
"Quite right," the Saladrin answered, fortunately missing the insult. "I understand that you have some antiques you wish to sell me."
The statement had the effect of a full-force jab right into one of her boobs. She was so stunned by this completely unexpected comment that an awkward pause ensued. Jn'Tonx took this to be shrewd silence on her part; she was obviously waiting to hear his offer.
"Obviously," it continued, "I am not willing to make specific offers until I have appraised the items myself." In the blue-green haze, eyestalks arched and twisted, looking her over. "Unfortunately, it would seem that you don't have them with you."
Cautiously, she replied “the items are in safe keeping. I did not anticipate conducting business with anyone so soon, and you brought me here without notice.”
The Saladrin made his equivalent of a nod. "My apologies. We did not expect your arrival so soon."
Blade kept a poker face upon hearing the last sentence.
"Still," Jn'Tonx continued, "this does give us the opportunity to discuss preliminaries."
Blade shrugged. In matters like these, she was a businesswoman before anything. She was trying to unload the items, and if a complete stranger wanted to buy them off her, then she would see what he was offering. If his money good, then who knows? And considering how badly she needed the money right now, she wasn’t about to turn down any offers. Even a ridiculously low bid on one item would pay off her immediate debts and get her the hell out of there.
“I’m listening,” she said simply.
"Payment will be made in local currency, paid into a bank account with Orbiter's finance station. That account will be numbered, so that anyone with the code can have access. Is that acceptable?"
Blade looked at him dumbly for precisely the right amount of time to indicate that it bloody well wasn’t.
“Marmidon must be more isolated than I thought,” she told him simply. “I was unaware that the universe’s IQ had dropped a hundred points.”
Jn'Tonx seemed genuinely puzzled. "Is there a problem?"
Blade crossed her arms, stood back on a leg. “You’re new at this, aren’t you.”
The voice modulator Jn'Tonx used was a very good model: it was able to incorporate the slight level of irritation in his reply: "I was only trying to make matters most convenient for all parties involved. And even though I am normally reluctant to do business with someone whose socks don't even match, I happen to be sympathetic to your cause. Therefore, I am willing to hear how you wish to handle this transaction."
Blade flipped out her credit card, wiggled it between two fingers. “Standard Galactic Credits only, please.”
Jn'Tonx cocked its head slightly—the most its exoskeleton would allow—and studied her. "An unusual way of doing business in this instance," it commented.
Pocketing the card, she replied, “Hey, it works for me.”
It realigned its head, analyzing her, her words, and various motives she might have. Its analyses yielded conflicting results with the data it had beforehand. Jn'Tonx certainly hadn’t gotten to where it was by operating with conflicting data; it decided to be blunt.
"Who do you work for?"
Smile: “Myself.”
Blade had misinterpreted the intention of the question, and Jn'Tonx had misinterpreted the intention of the answer. The two mistakes caused misinformation to double.
"Very well, we will do it your way—provided I am satisfied with the merchandise."
Blade nodded, causing ivory bangs to flop into her face. She brushed them away with boney fingers, and replied “I think that’s only fair. I look forward to selling them to you—provided I am satisfied with the price.”
Jn'Tonx reached an appendage out, and touched a button on the arm of its chair. Watching the motion, Blade noticed that the form-fitting pressurized gauze covering the limb had a very small one-shot weapon cunningly woven into it. As she filed the information away, she heard a quiet voice rise up out of a small speaker on the chair.
“Yez zir?”
"Mr. Cheth, would you please escort Miss Asmodeus out and return her safely?"
“Awn my way, zir.”
Jn'Tonx shut off the intercom and returned its attention to his guest. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have several important matters to attend to, and no doubt you do as well. Shall we meet again in six hours?"
Blade nodded. She was glad that Gin & Tonic wasn’t asking her to go get her items right away. She’d run out of fingers counting how many unusual, strange, and downright suspicious aspects there were to this set-up, and she wanted time to ponder them thoroughly before actually doing business. “That should prove sufficient.”
As if on cue (and, in fact, he had been right outside for some time) Snout entered through an unseen door. He snarled at Blade, a cat looking at a poorly caged canary while the master was around.
“Diz way, bleez.”
Blade nodded curtly to the Saladrin, went to the Hamaddi. They walked back across the room, and behind her Blade could see the track lights extinguish themselves. They left through the door she had originally entered.
When the door resealed itself, Jn'Tonx activated another button on the chair’s panel. A tiny vidio screen rose up at a 45E angle. After a moment, Tower appeared on it.
“Sir?”
"What time is my meeting with Commander Kl'Kit?"
Tower looked off-screen, consulting an itinerary roster.
“Roughly twenty-one hundred, sir.”
Pause for thoughtful contemplation. "Contact him, see if that can be moved ahead, preferably to within the next six hours."
“Yes, sir, but if I remember correctly, the Commander’s schedule is occupied with station matters, and 2100 was the earliest he expected to be free.”
Jn'Tonx clicked in understanding, then asked "I assume Throhn is still incommunicado on the other side of the planet?"
“Most likely, sir. When I’m done calling the station, I will contact the colony and find out. Shall I try and move your meeting with him up as well?”
The Saladrin considered his priorities in relation with the puzzling meeting it’d just concluded. "Yes, and contact him first. If he is on the dark side, leave instructions that I wish to speak to him as soon as possible."
“Very good, sir.”
It pressed a button, and the vidio screen collapsed back into the chair. It turned off the track light, and sat in darkness, thinking about the odd human it’d just met.
The odd human it’d just met walked down the corridor, trying to think about the odd Saladrin she’d just met. Unfortunately, the odd Hamaddi she’d met half an hour ago was making that difficult.
“I truzz dad jour meeding wid Mizder Jn'Tonx wend well?"
Blade looked at him, puzzled.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I zed, I truzz jour meeding wend well wid Mizder Jn'Tonx.”
Blade finally figured out what he was saying, but refused to let on.
“Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.”
They reached the dumbwaiter, but Snout kept walking. Blade guessed he was too busy concentrating on proper speech. As clearly as he could: “I truzd your meeting with Mizter Jn'Tonx went well.”
Blade was having fun pretending she couldn’t understand him. Besides, she was getting a fairly good tour of the ship this way.
“No, I’m still not getting what you’re saying.” She pulled out a white handkerchief, wrinkled from usually being rolled into a bandanna. Handing it over, she said “Here, maybe if you unclogged your nasal cavern first...”
Snout looked at her, a low raspy growl rising from his thick vocal chords. Ignoring her offering, he opened a door and led her into a fair-sized room lined with a giant Persian rug and brightly lit from the glow of numerous qomputer screens. About one third of them were manned, and their operators were busy with rapid-fire data entry and retrieval. All of them, she noticed, wore black uniforms and headsets.
Snout went to the far wall, and pressed an elevator summons. An indicator indicated that the lift was rising to retrieve them. Pocketing the handkerchief, Blade looked around. On one wall was a qomputer-generated topography map of the planet. Across from it was a schematic of the orbiter. Both maps had several people with remote control keyboards, futzing with the displays and having quiet discussions among themselves. In the middle of the room, a holotable generated a coulourful scale display of the planet, with the station in orbit. Numerous other apparitions of qomputer light clustered around the station: presumably the spacecraft trafficking it. Blade made a very accurate guess that the one thin holograph brooding away from the others around the station was the yacht she was on. Before she could see more, the elevator arrived.
Snout led her on, and verbally requested deck five. The roomy lift, which had another cushy rug lining it, began to descend. They rode in silence: he was smart enough not to talk, knowing she’d ridicule his speech some more. And as she’d guessed, he was very sensitive about that.
The lift glided smoothly to a halt, and the Hamaddi escorted his charge into a long hallway. Blade started to walk down it, then noticed Snout was keying entry into a door right by the elevator. She spun and retreated back toward him just as the door parted with an electric whisk and suction-breaking hiss. A short corridor with an open airloq at the end. Standing in the access tube, a pilot with a walrus mustache noted their arrival, and stepped aside to allow Blade entry.
Only after she boarded did she notice that Snout had not followed. She turned, curious.
“You’re not coming?”
“No, I ’ave madderz do addend do.”
“Let me guess: your daily nose draining?”
If looks could kill, a body-box would have been required.
Blade smiled. “Well, I’ll see you in six hours,” she said with a smile, and began to think up entertaining places she could hide on the orbiter that would make it difficult for her nasal nemesis to find her.
The look on his face indicated that he was not concerned with relocating her whereabouts, though he was not looking forward to seeing her again. Curtly, he closed the yacht’s outer airloq door, and she could see him turning smartly away.
Blade turned to her new company: the bushy-nosed pilot, and a second flight officer.
“Where’s Suzie?” she asked.
Walrus politely motioned for her to enter the shuttle, then sealed everything off. Manipulating the airloq, he replied “I’m sure she has duties to attend to. If you’d please have a seat?”
Blade shrugged, looked around the interior of the shuttle. This one was much larger and roomier than the one that had brought her to the yacht. In fact, it almost looked like a modified troop transport. She selected a seat along the wall—one of many lining the outer hull, and sat down. Brand new foam cushioning, she noticed.
“Cushy,” she said, bouncing on it playfully. Walrus ignored her, but the other flight officer smiled. She turned to consider him, but he was moving up to the cockpit.
“Sealed and locked,” Walrus called, and his second acknowledged that over the interqom. Finishing his duties, the man with the monster mustache went past Blade to his pilot’s chair, without even giving her a second thought. Hmpph: so much for hospitality.
In fact, it would be several minutes before either of them spoke to her. Even then, she had to initiate the conversation. She’d been looking idly out one of the side viewports when a disturbing sight floated by in the distance.
The orbiter.
“Excuse me,” she said getting up from the comfy chair, “but where are you taking me?”
“We’re returning you,” the copilot said.
Blade had reached the cockpit by then, and a glance out the front window showed their destination.
The northern hemisphere of the Sk'Gdadda Thirteen.
“Just out of idle curiosity,” she asked, “why are you taking me down to the planet?”
Walrus turned from navigation equipment to his passenger. “As I said,” and he sounded slightly annoyed, “we’re returning you.”
Patiently, Blade explained, “Monkey Man and the Juice Crew picked me up on the station.”
“Oh,” Walrus commented, and adjusted several dials. “Hey Ike, man, can you give me an atmospheric?”
Flipping a switch activated a new console, and a medium-resolution qomputer map of the planet generated in bright colours. The qomputer pixels changed hue and position every tenth of a second.
“There’s a storm over the pole, but it looks like we’re in the clear.”
Walrus nodded.
Blade was becoming increasingly convinced that the Universal Intelligence Quotient had dropped while she was on Marmidon. “If I came from the Orbiter, why are you taking me down to the planet?”
Rather than answer her question, Walrus flipped on a range finder and began scanning the qomputer grid of the planet.
“Where’s the frigging beacon?” he asked. “Hey Ike, man, do you see it?”
Ike Man checked the altimeter, replied “We’re low enough to pick it up...”
A moment later, a yellow dot appeared in the swirling qomputer blue. “There it is,” Walrus said, sounding slightly relieved.
Blade was growing increasingly upset. “Excuse me,” she said, but just then they entered the upper ionosphere, and the craft began to buckle. She grabbed ahold of both seats for support.
“Ike, man,” Walrus grumbled, “the stabilizers are frosting.”
“Got it,” said Ike Man, and flicked several toggles on a side console.
“Would you mind answering my question?” Blade demanded.
Walrus was now extremely irritated. “What?!?” he snapped.
“Why are we going down to the planet?”
“I would have thought that’s where you’d want to go,” said Ike Man.
The brilliant sarcastic response she had planned was disrupted by a particularly violent vibration. Blade dug her fingers into the chairs’ headrests to maintain an upright position.
“I don’t want to go to the planet,” she screamed.
The copilot turned to her briefly. “Sorry,” said Ike Man, “just following orders.”
They were immersed in swirling blue-green clouds thick with dust and debris. A particularly nasty air pocket caused the shuttle to lurch sideways, and Blade lost her balance.
“I heartily recommend sitting down and buckling up,” Walrus snapped.
“I can save you the trouble: turn this thing around now!”
“If you want to go to the station,” Walrus snarled, “I’m sure your friends down there can arrange something for you. But for now, sit down!”
Blade saw this was going nowhere but down, and another violent pitching threw her into the wall. She climbed back into a chair and buckled up, absently noting that the buckles were heavy-duty restraints. As she had first thought, she was in a converted troop transport.
Just then, she registered the comment Walrus had said about “friends on the planet.” She pondered this, and things almost began to fall into place.
Over the quiet roar of the outside, she could hear a garbled conversation going on between Walrus and somebody other than Ike Man. She strained to listen, gleaned that he was getting directions and assistance from a mining colony flight control. At first he was yelling at them, but then the tone mellowed out.
The phrase “I have you in sight” was clearly audible, and very appreciated.
Unexpectedly, the craft jarred tangibly in a way Blade was sure wasn’t intended, and she half expected to hear hull-breach sirens. Instead, Walrus and Ike Man came back into the cabin—her first indication that they had landed—and began to operate the airloq controls.
“Hurry up,” Walrus said irritably to her, “we want to get out of here.”
“So do I,” Blade said, remaining put. “Take me back up.”
Ike Man opened the inner air loq door, and Walrus hiked a thumb inside. “Out,” he said simply.
Blade considered standing her ground, saw it would get her nowhere. Unbuckling, she said “hey, if it gets me away from you, no problem.”
The moment she went into the airloq, Ike Man shut the door behind her. The outer door opened, showing a long elastic rampart extended from another airloq. Taking a cue, she walked along that into the new portal.
The door shut behind her again, and she could hear the umbilicus retracting. The airloq suddenly went red, and she could feel a pins-and-needles as a decontamination cycle was run. Well, that’s a fine way to greet somebody...
The inner door opened, and five armed men rushed in, guns drawn. They were in heavy work clothes, stained with dirt and grease. Blade looked at them amusedly. This is just getting better and better.
“Can I help you?” she asked with a straight face. When the guards had surrounded her, a short man with flame read hair strode up to her. He, too, had heavy industrial clothes on, but his were unmarred. Blade nodded; must be an administrator.
“Can I see your passport?” he asked in a curt tone.
Blade pulled out her id card. “Good enough?”
He snapped it away from her, scrutinized it with the thoroughness of a government bureaucrat.
“You don’t have a Visa,” he said.
“Do you take American Express?” she asked sweetly.
He ignored the blatant anachronism and transferred her card to his other hand, then held his free one out again.
“Surrender your weapons,” carrot-top said in a flat tone.
“Why?” Blade asked, reluctant to disarm herself.
“For starters, we don’t allow weapons on this colony.”
Blade looked at the five miners surrounding her with fully charged laser rifles. “You don’t seem to be enforcing that rule very effectively,” she said wryly.
“Secondly,” carrot-top finished, “it’s standard procedure when you’re placed under arrest.”