EXCERPT: TYCHE’S DECEIT
One Good Lead
“It all leads back to Evans.” Nate had his arms crossed, blaster at his side, murder in his heart. The Tyche was adrift, holding in the hard black somewhere between Pluto and Neptune. Nothing out here to mine. Nothing out here to salvage. Not even rich folk came out here to see the sights anymore. It was a perfect opportunity to run silent, watching for danger. Things like: huge asteroids that were in fact alien ships that launched rocks down gravity wells. Nothing so far. Just the usual susurration of radio chatter from ten billion human souls shouting into the void, hoping someone would pay attention for a second. Nate was sure of one thing: attention was coming.
“That little shitwipe? I should have glassed that motherfucker back on Enia Alpha,” said Kohl. “I don’t know why you stopped me.”
“Technically,” said Grace, “he was hiring us at the time. If you’d … what did you call it?”
“Glassed,” said Kohl.
“Like, nukes?” said Hope. She was floating off the floor a couple centimeters, just within reach for her magboots for when it became go-time.
“Glassed,” said Kohl, “like with a bottle. You smash it over the head of someone who deserves it, and if they don’t go down like a sack of drowned puppies, you poke ’em with the sharp end.”
“That a foreign term?” said El. “Sounds like you imported that one from off-world.”
“Used to run with a Glaswegian,” said Kohl. “Real asshole, used to say it a lot. Thing is—”
“Thing is,” said Grace, “he was paying us good Republic coin. Or promising to. If you’d ’glassed that motherfucker,’ we wouldn’t have been paid.”
“Still,” said Kohl. “Would have saved us and ours a bunch of hurtin’.” He paced on the worn deck plates, his magboots clunking with each step. “We should have—”
“Generally,” said Nate, “I’m not into agreeing with Kohl wholesale. But bearing in mind that taking Evans’ coin led us off a short plank with a long drop, well. Here we are. Thinking Kohl is right.”
“I haven’t been here in a long time,” said Hope, meaning the solar system, not Kohl’s point of view. Or, at least, that’s what Nate’s mental math tallied to. Her voice low. “A long time.”
“You haven’t been alive a long time,” said El.
“It’s all relative,” said Hope. “I don’t know why we came here for him. We should be on Enia Alpha.”
“Enia Alpha,” said Nate, “is where he won’t be. No way he was a local boy. No way he was there by random chance of fate.” He put a hand on the butt of his blaster. “I think we should encourage him to tell us a little more. About the mission. About … why us. Our crew.” He met Grace’s eyes across the ready room, the hum of the Tyche quiet for a moment. “Our family.”
“Okay,” said El. “This is all very touching, but where to first? You think he’s batting here for the home team. Nine planets. Which one do we touch base with first?”
“The only one that counts,” said Nate. “We’re going home.”
“Great,” said Kohl. “Just great.”
“I haven’t been there in a long time too,” said Grace, her face looking down at the deck. Then she looked at Kohl. “Wait. Why don’t you want to be here? Got a warrant out on you or something?”
“Me? No,” said Kohl. “Just, I guess I’m more of a burning bridges kind of guy.”
“Me too,” said Hope. “The fires help light the way.”
“Anyway,” said Nate. This is getting real maudlin, real fast. “We need a plan. If we open a comm up, say, ’Yo, this here’s the Tyche, and we’re hunting assholes,’ we won’t get a warm welcome.”
“Or we’ll get a really warm welcome,” said El. “Lasers and plasma, couple of torpedoes, that kind of thing.”
“Exactly my concern,” said Nate. “So, I have this plan.”
“Oh God, oh God, why,” said Hope.
“Uh,” said Nate.
“Your plans do suck a little,” said El. “I’m trying to be honest. What do they call it? Three-sixty something?”
“Three sixty degree reviews,” said Grace. “You give feedback on your boss. It’s where—”
“We can give feedback on the captain?” said Kohl. “I’m in.”
“The plan,” said Nate, “involves an old buddy of mine. He’ll know where we can look for Evans. He’ll want a favor in return. Most like? We’ll have to lift something heavy—”
“Fuck,” said Kohl.
“But Harlow? He’ll do us right,” said Nate. “Leastwise, he has in the past. Most of the time.”
“Most of the time?” said Grace.
CHAPTER ONE
The rain was the best part of this place. It sure as hell wasn’t the people.
Now, the rain: it smelled clean. It tasted clean. It washed away grime and sweat and the smell of being on a ship for weeks. It carried the smell of the sea, even though the sea was klicks away. It was cooling in the heat, although in twenty minutes when it stopped raining the air would turn into a kind of cloying miasma of humidity. Nate planned to be inside somewhere air-conditioned, preferably a place that served alcohol, by the time that happened. Odds were against him, because his contact wasn’t here yet. Which led to…
The people: they were everywhere. Underfoot, like rats, if rats could be big, and selfish, and loud. Actually, nothing at all like rats, because rats didn’t try and sell you knock-off holos or umbrellas that didn’t work. Nate eyeballed the man in front of him. The guy was trying to sell Nate … well, what was that thing? “Hey,” said Nate, interrupting the man’s mishmash of Cantonese, Tamil, and Russian. “What the fuck is that?”
“Elektroshokovyy pistolet,” said the man. “Taser. Mikavum nallatu, yes?”
Nate looked at the man, then at the bicycle the man had. It was laden with knick-knacks, odds and ends; some of it might have been garbage for a recycler. Hard to tell. Nate would have called the collection souvenirs if it wasn’t for the thing the man kept trying to shove in his face. “A taser, huh,” said Nate. He patted the blaster at his hip. “Now why would I be needing one of those?”
“Fēi zhìmìng,” said the man. “Sometimes you don’t want kill.”
“Ah,” said Nate. “For those times, I use my charm.”
“We’re all going to die,” said Grace. She’d worked her way back to Nate through the steady throng of humanity he was neck-deep in. He hadn’t even seen her coming. There were so many people here that it was hard to check all the corners. I already miss having a deck under my feet and no one for a million klicks in any direction. “But it’ll be a clean death.” She handed him an ice cream. Nate took it without comment, testing the flavor. Butter pecan. Could be a lot worse. And — being fair to their current location — getting a decent ice cream on the Tyche was out of the question. Hope couldn’t magic one up in her fab. The galley served food lookalikes. But at least there weren’t this many people.
The man with the souvenirs gave Grace a withering glance and then pushed his way off into the crowd. “How much luck you suppose he has?” said Nate. “You know. Selling worthless shit.” He was having to raise his voice over the noise of the throng around them. He gestured with his ice cream, which was getting wet. An excuse to eat it fast, if ever there was one.
“A taser can be useful,” said Grace. She had her own ice cream, something green with flecks of black. Mint and chocolate chip, maybe?
“Not in our line of work,” said Nate. “We live on the binary edge, Grace. Hot and cold. Yin and yang. Black and white. Dead or alive.” He shook his butter pecan cone for emphasis.