We’re running three-way encrypted comms.
Anyone who likes can listen in. The theory is they won’t understand a word we say. Mind you, this is militia crypt we’re using. So a passing child could probably break it. Anton says he’s never seen a village without animals.
‘Eaten,’ I say.
He’s genuinely shocked.
‘It’s the drought, sir,’ Sergeant Leona tells him. ‘Emergency food deliveries never make it this far out. Last year’s riots were the worst ever.’
Riots on Farlight?
That’s the first I’ve heard of it.
‘We had food at Wildeside,’ Anton says. ‘Almost all was stolen while we were in prison.’ He shrugs. ‘There’s enough left to feed us for six months. After that . . .’
Anton faces twenty years’ exile. After which he’s free to return to Farlight. That leaves nineteen years of shipping food north. And, obviously enough, he’s already broken his parole just leaving Wildeside’s boundaries.
If he’s discovered, OctoV won’t be satisfied with just executing him. Our glorious leader will undoubtedly double Debro’s exile. If he doesn’t simply return her to Paradise, or decide to execute her and her daughter as well.
It’s easy to see what made Debro so cross.
‘Anton,’ I say. ‘About that cargo carrier.’
A second later, he’s alongside and flipping up his visor. This isn’t a conversation he wants to have using militia crypt. ‘Not ours,’ he says. ‘Well, Debro’s.’
‘It had Wildeside down the side . . .’
Stencilled, and then painted out.
No black box. No recognition beacon. All the crew in uniforms with their patches cut off. I’d ask Carl, the cargo captain I dragged from the wreck. But he’s back at Wildeside with half his skull still stove in.
‘Debro’s being set up,’ Anton insists.
‘That’s one possibility. There are others.’
‘What are they?’
‘You lost any ships recently?’
His gaze slides off mine and settles on the road. The village is behind us, the moon a little higher in the sky. Anton’s supposed to be bringing up the rear, but Sergeant Leona drops back to take that position the moment she’s realized he’s abandoned it. She’s a good man to have around.
‘Well?’ I say.
‘Three,’ he admits. ‘Wrecked in a meteor storm.’
‘All together?’
‘No. First one, then two others. Four-month gap.’
‘How many have you lost in the last ten years?’
‘Three,’ says Anton. ‘And yes, it was those three . . .’
He seems to be reconsidering. But I know Anton. He’ll have considered it already. If he’s rejected the obvious conclusion, I want to know why.
‘We got salvage,’ he explains. ‘Plus eighty-five per cent partial for cargo saved.’
‘You got scrap on the wreckage? Plus most of what was raised selling the cargo?’
‘Debro’s insurance paid the difference.’
‘Nice touch.’
Anton glances across.
‘Scrap, and partial on the salvage.’
Used to know card sharps like that in Karbonne. Three-cup men and dice-rollers. They’d buy you drinks in some scuzzy back-street bar. Let you examine both sides of their cards and win every game.
They’d even buy you beers to show there were no hard feelings. Introduce you to their favourite whores, with necklines so low you never bothered to notice the hardness in their eyes.
Next morning you wake minus their money, your own pay and anything else you might have had worth stealing. If you wake at all.
The second time someone tried that I broke his arm. There wasn’t a third. It helps people to know where they stand.
‘You think it’s a con?’ Anton asks.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘A good one.’
The village we hit a couple of hours later used to be something else. A cargo depot? The control buildings for an old mine? Why else would it sit on the side of a hill, miles from water and without any defences?
Even round here people aren’t that stupid.
The moon’s now behind cloud, our headlights are almost useless and killing my lights and flipping down my visor just produces fuzz. Our night vision is militia standard. If you’re still alive when it gets dark too bad.
Old buildings. Mostly broken.
A truck without wheels. An upturned bath riddled with bullet holes. An Icefeld, three models older than this one, with razor vine round its rotted wheel. A sign advertising a tavern that wind, age and vandalism have scrubbed back to a floor plan.
‘Fuck,’ Anton says. ‘What a dump.’
Sergeant Leona agrees.
Kicking his side stand into place, Anton kills his ignition and sets the security on his bike. This activates a capacitor that blasts a high-voltage, low-amp shock through anyone stupid enough to try to hotwire the gyro.
‘Right,’ I say. ‘Let’s grab some sleep.’
That’s the way we’re going to make this trip. Ride by night and sleep by day. A light under a door leads us to the only bar in town.
‘Closed,’ says a voice, before we have time to knock.
A lenz over the door links to a speaker behind a broken grille. Someone’s punched a dent in the mesh and then ripped it open. It’s not necessary. We get the picture. This place stinks.
Anton knocks anyway.
When that doesn’t produce results, he kicks.
The sergeant is looking at me. She knows there’s going to be trouble. Wants to know what she’s meant to do about it.
‘Sir?’ she says.
‘Take your lead from me.’
She grins and I decide I like her.
‘He’s shut,’ someone announces. Not, We’re shut or I’m shut. He’s shut. Tells me he doesn’t own the place. Doesn’t even work here.
Just likes interfering.
‘Stand back.’
It’s a cheap door with poor-quality hinges. After I kick it out of the frame, it’s a broken door with poor-quality hinges. And the weapons-detection system built into its frame is fucked. Either that, or it has the sense to keep quiet. Not a peep comes from it as I stamp my way into the room, side arm in hand.
My kick sent the man behind reeling. And door and man obviously hit the floor together. Something cracks when I climb over them.
Sounds like ribs to me.
‘Don’t want any trouble,’ says a weasel-faced man serving beer.
‘We don’t start it,’ I say.
Sergeant Leona grins. ‘No,’ she says. ‘We finish it.’
Definitely a girl after my own heart.
Chapter 13
The tavern’s not that bad really. Music blares from a juke box. The air stinks of cigar smoke, beer, unwashed men and cheap brandy. For a second, I feel almost at home. The smoke hugs a yellowed ceiling like low-lying cloud.
A dozen men at the bar check out we’re not the law, the bailiffs or the husbands of women they’ve been screwing and most relax. I take note of the ones who don’t. One of them is field-stripping his Colt. The barrel sits in a puddle of beer. The gun is only semi AI, but still has enough smarts to complain.
Still swearing, a man crawls from under the door.
He’s clutching his side and swaying slightly. Could be pain, but it looks like drunkenness to me. When he lurches towards me, Leona’s boot finds its way in front of his. Probably bad luck she treads on his trigger finger as she walks past.
A dozen men stare.
Most have the eyes of those who’ve seen combat.
The rest have mirror shades. Whose reflection has seen villages burn, boys gunned down, and women offer themselves and see their daughters taken anyway. It’s two hours to dawn. Makes me wonder what they’re doing up this early.
Apart from playing cards, obviously.
A man with his back to me holds an emperor, two generals and a sniper. Unless the scar-faced man opposite plans to cheat he’s already lost.
A pile of coins sits between them.
It’s a large pile. Mostly silver, some bronze. A gold Octo glints in the lamplight. A few of the bigger coins look off-world. One is metalhead. I can see the medusa head of Gareisis, their hundred-braid, bug-eyed in the half light.