*
The voyage, although not without incident, passed without undue difficulty. The Dubious Profit managed to take on and sell a fair amount of salvage, pulled from the wreckage of shattered pirate vessels, but the proceeds had not lived up to Hesperus’s expectation. There was the odd canister of premium goods – two tons of computers scooped in the Anlere system, and three of rare Riantian spices taken in Veis – but all too often the pickings were meagre: cheap fabrics, dull carbonaceous ores, and scraps and shards of twisted hull plates.
Particularly irksome was his escorts’ habit of stopping at each and every station on the way, to sell whatever they had gathered regardless of the local market conditions. This not only failed to wring the maximum value from the salvaged commodities, but often meant that the Dubious Profit’s extra cargo space was not called upon at all.
When Hesperus raised the issue with Ander, the human was apologetic. “I realise your frustration, Captain,” he had said, “but you must understand, prizes acquired from the destruction of criminals are goods without provenance. To tally cargo taken against bounties collected in the same system is a small matter, but to trans-ship those same canisters to other worlds is to invite all manner of tedious inspections from customs clerks, and endless questioning from officious policemen. Now, I do not fear Co-operative law, but I have no stomach whatsoever for their bureaucracy!”
Hesperus knew that Ander had a point. In fact, compared with his usual experiences in Co-op stations, this journey was remarkably smooth and easy. Successful bounty hunters were always welcome in any system, and even his primitive Qudiran document, bearing as it did the magic word “Inines” as the port of origin for the eighty tons of machinery, had attracted no extra scrutiny. He conceded that Ander knew his business: after all, every piece of salvage was pure profit, whatever it was sold for, and in any case the humans were convivial, and generous companions in the various stations’ bars.
It was only when the little convoy arrived in the Teen system that things began to go awry. As they cruised in from the witchpoint Hesperus could see that something was up: dozens of little points of light glinted around the distant station. It looked like a cloud of vessels, hanging in orbit, and not at all the usual to-and-fro of traffic he expected.
The comms lit up, and a bored voice droned from the speakers. “Inbound shipping, inbound shipping, this is Te’en Main Station. We are experiencing problems with our schedule, be advised that delays are likely.” The message repeated, then cut off.
“Bloody agitators.” Ander’s voice, on ship-to-ship.
Hesperus’s shoulders sagged. Now what? “Ah, say again, Olympus?”
“Oh, it’s probably another labour dispute,” said Ander. “Shuttle pilots from the planet blockading the docking bay. Really, the Te’en government goes too easy on them.”
Hesperus was vaguely aware of political problems on Teen. The register made mention of a civil war, but it was practically unheard of for planetary disputes to spill out above the atmosphere and interrupt the larger life of the Co-operative. “Is it the war?” he asked, trying to keep his voice neutral and incurious.
“War?” said Ander. “No, no, I wouldn’t think so. The so-called Te’en ‘civil war’ is just a tiny bunch of anarchists and terrorists, making trouble and frightening honest citizens. No, this is the Shuttlers’ Union, trying it on. Working hours, or launch-window rates, or some damn thing. The Te’en Dictatorat should just get in there and crack some heads, but they’ve always been too liberal for their own good. They govern with a gentle touch.”
“You are very well-informed, Ander,” said Hesperus. Like most spacers, Hesperus was supremely disinterested in the tedious scrabblings that went on beneath the clouds of the Co-operative worlds. He saw planets as mere obstacles, at best as convenient places around which to suspend the trading ports and shipyards where real life ebbed and flowed. Ander’s knowledge was atypical, to say the least.
“Oh, I’m a local boy,” said Ander. “Te’en born and bred.”
“Ah,” Hesperus replied, losing interest. The four ships continued on, towards the halo of idling craft.
The station slowly drew nearer. The Dubious Profit’s comms clicked into life again. A private message, this time, from somewhere in-system.
“Captain Hesperus, I am glad to see your ship. This is Tulka.”
Hesperus thumbed the communicator. “Mr Tulka, a pleasure. We have your cargo, safe and sound.”
“Excellent, excellent. I see though that there is some issue with Te’en Main Station. Have you managed to obtain a docking window?”
“Ah, not at present, Mr Tulka. I am afraid that at the moment we must sit and wait.”
“That is most unfortunate, Captain. As you are no doubt aware, if the goods are not received by my agent within four hours, all bonuses are forfeit. And, of course, the penalty clauses begin to activate.”
Hesperus jerked upright in the command couch. “What? Forfeit? And I recall no penalty clauses!”
“They are clearly stipulated on the bill of lading, Captain. You still have it, of course?”
Hesperus thought about the Ininish ident pad, and its endless scrolling legalese. He did not remember seeing any specified delivery time, but it could have said anything. A long, low stream of curses rolled from his mouth, heaping imprecations on the Qudiran agent’s head.
“Pardon, Captain?”
“Ah, excuse me, I was clearing my throat,” Hesperus replied. He thought rapidly. Ander. Ander and his local knowledge. “Give me a moment, Mr Tulka, while I try to resolve our mutual problem.”
He put Tulka’s call on hold, and raised the Olympus. “Ander? Ah, Hesperus here. I wonder if you could tell me: is this shuttle dispute likely to be resolved any time soon? Say, within the next couple of hours?”
Ander laughed. “I wouldn’t think so. There’s only about forty ships backed up around the station: usually the Shuttlers wait until it hits three figures before they feel they’ve made their point.”
Hesperus felt that he might weep. To be so close! The universe was conspiring against him. All his hoped-for returns would go glimmering. Rus would sneer, and probably take a berth in another ship. The Profit’s engines would collapse and weld themselves into a solid, inert lump, and he would drift here forever above this vile ball of dirt with its ineffectual government and fractious, inconsiderate shuttle pilots.
“You know, there might be another option, if you’re in a hurry,” Ander said.
Hesperus nearly fell out of his chair. “Say again? Another option? What other option?”
“Well …” Ander paused.
“Ander, Mr Ander, please! Time is of the essence!”
“It’s not strictly legal, you know? Breach of regulations, all that.”
Hesperus fought to control his breathing. “Tell me anyway, Mr Ander. Please.”
“You could – and I’m not suggesting this, mind – you could make planetfall.”
Hesperus’s heart sank. That was possibly the stupidest suggestion he could have heard. The hard harbours on a planet’s surface were heavily policed, and any unlicensed craft touching down would be immediately impounded. No planetary authority could risk exposing itself to the unregulated flow of ships, cargoes, lifeforms and pathogens from the thousands of wildly various worlds that formed the Co-operative.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Ander continued. “But, well … I know a spot, see? Unofficial. Away from over-anxious scrutiny.” He chuckled. “My past life, Captain! I wasn’t always a straight-arrow bounty hunter! But you’re a decent guy. I like you. And you run a tight ship, and anyway you’ve been through, what, twelve separate quarantine protocols, all in the last few days. You’re clean. And it’s a damned shame to see you inconvenienced like this. You know, I feel responsible: this is my homeworld, and it’s my people who are causing you this unnecessary trouble. And with the police, and the pickets, and the traffic all round the station, there’s not a chance i
n hell of you being picked up. So if you’re interested …”
Hesperus felt lightheaded. “Mr Ander, I am very interested. And if this works, I will buy you several beers.”
Ander laughed again. “Look forward to it, Captain. I’ll send you the co-ordinates now.”
Hesperus slammed Ander’s information into his navigation console, calling up the planetary display. A cheerful green spark glowed at the head of a long valley, nestled in a range of tall mountains. They could make it there before the deadline. Just. He clicked the comms back to Tulka’s signal. “Mr Tulka? My apologies for keeping you waiting. I, ah, may have a solution to our problem.” He fed Tulka the location of Ander’s secret landing site, and held his breath.
“Captain Hesperus …”
Hesperus screwed his eyes shut, and gritted his teeth. “Yes?”
“I admire your boldness, and cannot fault your commitment to customer satisfaction! As it happens I am eager to get this equipment to the planet’s surface with all despatch, and by good fortune this … place … is convenient for my primary market. If you can make this delivery then I will even throw in the shuttler’s fee on top of the rest of the deal. That will fling mud in the eye of those bothersome shuttle pilots who have so little consideration for the necessities of trade!”
Limp with relief, Hesperus acknowledged, and signed off. When he called Ander to thank him, and to say goodbye, the Rapier pilot replied, “We’ll escort you down. Show you the best way in, yes? And we’ll see you in the station, after. I haven’t forgotten – you owe me some beers!”
The universe was running sweetly again. Hesperus turned the Dubious Profit away from the shipping lane and sent her slipping down towards the night side of the planet, heading for the mountain valley where he could at last unload his goods and claim his just rewards.
The ships crawled across the dark face of the planet, their drives scrabbling for traction against the steepening sides of Teen’s gravity well. Shuttles, equipped for atmospheric flight and coated in ablative armour, could batter their way down through the last few hundred klicks from orbit to the surface in mere minutes. The Dubious Profit and her companions, though, were creatures of the void; their engines gripped the fabric of the universe, and here, so close to a planetary mass – even one as small as Teen – that fabric was sorely bent and stretched. With the Profit’s drive in such poor shape it would take almost all of Hesperus’s spare four hours to slither down a distance that, in pure and empty space, they could have leapt in the blinking of an eye.
Still, thought Hesperus, they would make their landfall with some minutes to spare; and, whispering downwards at such a stately speed, there would be little to attract the attention of any observers on the ground. Unless the engines failed, of course: then the Dubious Profit would fall like a stone, blaze like a meteor across the night sky … but in that case detection from below would be the least of his concerns, and then only for the short interval before the ship and all its crew were annihilated. With that thought in mind, and with his ears twitching to every labouring groan of the Profit’s engine, Hesperus steered a long curving arc over a black ocean, watching the valley creep closer on his console display.
Flanked by Pavonis and Ascraeus and following the Olympus, the Dubious Profit slid over the pinnacles of some vertiginous low-gee mountains and glided down towards the valley floor. Ahead on the display, Hesperus could see a tiny green beacon winking in the blackness. The deck pulsed beneath his feet; the ship’s engines surged and faded, surged and faded, but the Profit held her course and came at last to a wallowing hover some tens of metres above a scoured and flattened patch of rock, marked out with sparking flares. Figures and ground vehicles moved in the surrounding darkness.
The comms crackled. “Python, Python, you’re clear. Come on in.”
His tongue between his teeth, Hesperus nursed the controls, twitching and tweaking, until finally he let Teen’s weak gravity take her grip. The Dubious Profit gave one last lurch, then settled with a series of crunching jolts to lie gracelessly on the ground. The Rapier circled once overhead, waggling a farewell, before it and the two Asps turned and rose smoothly back towards the safety of open space.
Hesperus flipped himself out from the command couch and ran in long, loping bounds towards the airlock. Rus strode towards him from the engine room.
“Hesperus, you cross-witted dolt! Those engines are barely fit to fly flat! What the hell are we doing down the bottom of a well?”
“Business, Rus, we’re doing business. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a client waiting outside.” He slapped the airlock, beginning its cycle.
Rus grunted. “Well, I’m going to have to take a look at the engine manifold. If your harebrained flight down here didn’t pop it out of true then your shoddy landing surely did.” He held a bull-hammer and a duct reamer in one huge paw; they looked like ancient, primitive weapons. Hesperus suddenly remembered his Sepp & Blübach laser pistol, hidden underneath the Profit’s console. A smuggler’s den on a barbaric planet: perhaps it would be best if―
The internal airlock gasped open, and Rus stepped forwards, pressing Hesperus into the narrow chamber and squashing him against the outer door.
“Uff … Rus, I …” The inner lock heaved itself shut, and the outer door began to open. Too late, thought Hesperus. He couldn’t go back in again, only to return carrying a weapon. That would be a worse idea than not being armed in the first place. Oh well: if things turned ugly one laser pistol more or less probably wouldn’t make much difference. Anyway, Mandingo had smiled on him so far. He’d just have to ride his luck that little bit further.
The outer lock clanked to one side. Hesperus grabbed the doorframe to prevent himself popping out into the darkness, and scrabbled for the access ladder with his foot. Rus prodded him. “Come on, come on. I need to see what this bloody little rockball is doing to my manifolds.”
Hesperus slipped and slithered down the ladder, trying to compensate for Teen’s weak gravity. His boots crunched against powdered rock and a tall figure, human, with a dull cloth stretched over its nose and mouth, loomed out of the night.
“Captain Hesperus? Welcome to Te’en.”
“Thank you, ah … ow!” Rus’s descending boot kicked him in the ear. Hesperus and the human moved to one side as the Profit’s engineer forged off towards the Python’s stern. Hesperus glowered at Rus’s retreating back, his eyes adapting quickly to the dark.
“As I was saying, thank you. Now, where is Mr Tulka’s agent? I take it your ground staff can assist us to discharge the cargo?”
The human reached up and twitched aside the cloth covering its face. It was Tulka. “I thought it best to supervise the unloading personally, Captain,” he said. “Once everything is squared away I will make arrangements for the transfer of funds to your account. Now, if you would open the cargo bay … ?”
Under the sprawling belly of the Dubious Profit, Hesperus tapped in the access codes, simultaneously cancelling the regulation warning hooter as the massive bay door descended. Tulka certainly ran a well-drilled organisation: dozens of men marched into the bay with truckles and lifters. Soon the cargo was moving in a steady stream out of the ship, off towards the ground vehicles that grumbled among the expiring flicker of the marker flares.
The last few canisters were leaving the ship when one of Tulka’s men jogged up, shouldering a rifle and coming to attention beside them. “That’s the bulk of the shipment away now, sir. I’ve sent it off to get unpacked. We’ll follow on down with the rest of the stuff as soon as it’s on the flatbeds.”
Hesperus keyed the bay again. The huge door groaned ponderously up into the body of the ship, and Hesperus and Tulka strolled down to oversee the final loading. A clutch of cargo canisters were stacked together neatly beside him, and he felt the warm glow of money well earned. This was how business should be done, he thought: briskly, efficiently and with no tedious quibbling over the fee. Suddenly a wave of searing
light erupted among the waiting vehicles, and a shattering explosion boomed around the surrounding cliffs. Broken figures were flung skywards, briefly silhouetted against the scarlet glare. White streams of tracer fire lanced from the darkness, hosing from three sides of the landing site. Screams and shouts rang out, and sporadic gunshots stabbed back from around the transports, seeking targets.
Bristling like a bottle-brush, Hesperus dived behind a stack of canisters and flattened himself to the earth. Engines were roaring and dopplering away; bullets hummed and whined overhead; a series of high, shrieking whistles sounded and the ground shook as a chain of crashing impacts burst around him.
The thunderous din went on and on, cut through with crying voices and criss-crossed by the vicious hiss and ping of flying chips of rock and red-hot metal. Finally the cacophony ceased. A few last warped echoes rolled across the valley as if trying to get out. Sharp pops and snaps leaked from the burning ground-cars, and an ugly gasping whimper rose from somewhere beyond.
Hesperus clung to the dusty ground, eyes screwed shut. He could hear a scatter of footsteps; there was a hard crack and the whimpering cut off. The footsteps crunched closer. Low voices muttered: “Clear.” “Clear.” “He’s down now.” “Clear.”
“Get those containers in. Looks like we missed the main load but let’s see what they left behind.” A firm determined voice, used to authority.
Play dead, Hesperus thought. Play dead and maybe stay alive. He could hear the canisters being dragged away, one by one.
Something hard prodded him in the back. He didn’t move. A thick voice from above him called out. “Looks like there was an offworlder, chief.”
“Check it for ID.”
Hesperus was rolled over in a cloud of dust and grit. He sneezed. His eyes jerked open as the barrel of a rifle rammed hard against his nose.
“Still breathing, chief! I pop it?”
There was a ghastly pause.
“No. No. Bring it. It might know what slipped out.”
A dirty hand shot down, grabbing Hesperus by the throat and hauling him to his feet. He gasped, choking, struggling for air. The blunt stock of the rifle whipped round; there was a moment of blinding pain, and Hesperus rushed down into a sick and soundless dark.