*
Beyond the trading floor lay a stretch of passages and conduits in a state of obvious development. The route was well marked, however, and he arrived with some minutes to spare, emerging into a transparent blister overlooking a cavernous docking bay. Hesperus peered out into the gloom. A few brilliant stars were visible, framed within a distant circular opening at the far end of the bay. A flexible tube snaked away from the blister, connecting to some enormous structure that almost filled the entire space. Strange: like a gigantic city block, berthed as if it were a ship … He staggered, struck by sudden vertigo. It was a ship. A vast ship, bigger than anything Hesperus had seen before. Long, smooth, sleek; rows of plasma turrets dotted the hectares of its flanks, and three huge engine manifolds jutted out from its undershot stern, each nearly big enough to swallow the Dubious Profit whole.
When Hesperus had known him, years ago, Sherman Sunderling had flown a Python, like the Dubious Profit. Perhaps Sunderling’s vessel had been a trifle more robust, capable of threatening lone merchants and warding off the passing attentions of local police – but still essentially the same class of ship. Clearly, the man was now operating at an entirely different level. This, this new ship, this thing, this could give a squadron of the Co-operative Navy cause for concern. The thought of such force being at the command of an alcoholic bully like Sunderling made Hesperus’s bowels churn. What ghastly flaw in the logic of the universe could have produced such a misalignment of fortune?
And Sunderling, this new, successful, powerful Sunderling, wished to see him. Had asked especially to see him. Had laughed, even. Hesperus gnawed at the knuckles of his right fist, eyeing the airlock that led to the monstrous craft. Finally, with a spasmodic jerk, he stepped forward and thumbed the intercom beside the entrance to the access tube.
The intercom grille emitted an interrogatory sound.
“Hah-hm, I am Hesperus, Captain Hesperus, master, commander and owner of the merchant vessel the Dubious Profit, here at the express invitation of—”
The grille made a flat, disinterested noise. A light burned green, and the airlock hissed open. Hesperus drew a long breath, and entered the tube.
He boarded the ship, emerging into a long corridor. To his right and left the passage branched off into the interior of the huge vessel; directly in front was a wide double door marked “Stateroom”. As he hesitated, glancing from side to side, the doors parted, revealing a dimly lit interior space large enough to contain the entire crew quarters of the Profit with room to spare. A figure stood near the centre of the room, and Hesperus recognised the barrel gut and bull neck, the splay-footed stance of Sherman Sunderling – styled the Haute, also known as the Black Dog of Lasoce. He was very, very still.
“Mr Sunderling!” squeaked Hesperus, stepping forward and fighting to modulate his voice. “Ha-hm, Mr the Haute Sherman Sunderling, the Haute indeed, I am amazed, delighted, astounded by your ship, your station, your success …” He came to an uncertain stop, still some metres from his host. Sunderling made no move: he simply stood there, jaw jutting forward, staring off to the right. “Ah …” said Hesperus. “Aha … I …”
“He will not speak with you.” A voice, light and amused, behind him.
Hesperus leapt, whinnying, and looked wildly around. A human female stood in the doorway, slightly built, sheathed to her throat in a beetle-black armoured pressure suit. A nimbus of blonde hair framed her face.
“Oh! I mean, ah, er … Arae?” Hesperus glanced back at Sunderling, who still gazed fixedly into nowhere. He looked, thought Hesperus, slightly annoyed, as if there was some minor fact he couldn’t quite remember. “Um ah I don’t …”
“No, you don’t,” said the woman, a faint smile playing on her lips. “I see though at least that you remember me.” Stepping forward, she twitched a finger, and the stateroom doors glided shut behind her. “How gratifying. For I remember you, Hesperus. Captain. Captain Hes-per-us.” She paced around him, graceful as a dancer, to stand next to Sunderling.
“Yes, ah, Arae … Arae! How, how nice to see …” His eyes flicked between Arae’s smiling face, and Sunderling’s vaguely constipated one. “I, I am here by invitation, I … that is to say Mr Sunderling and I …”
Arae’s lips parted to expose her small white teeth, and she placed one hand on Sunderling’s shoulder. “I must inform you that Mr the Haute Sherman Sunderling is dead, and has been for quite some time. This … memento here,” she caressed Sunderling’s hair, “is all that remains.”
“Oh. Oh, I mean, my condolences, I regret—”
“Regret!” Arae laughed. She gestured, and a soft yellow light glowed above her. “Here is regret!” With one hand she grasped Sunderling’s belt and, without apparent effort, lifted the rigid form entirely off the floor. She tilted Sunderling’s head towards Hesperus. He saw a deep depression in the top of the scalp, as if it had been struck by a large hammer. A large hammer or a small fist. “My one regret,” said Arae, “is that in killing him I shattered his skull. For I would have had it lined in silver, and drunk red wine from it all the days of my life.”
“But then … my invitation …”
“You are here at my command, Hesperus. This ship, this station; everything they signify and contain, the volume of space which they control, all belong to me, and me alone. This—” she set Sunderling’s stuffed corpse down with a weighty thump “—was nothing but a common criminal, skulking in his lair, sneaking out to loot and steal and sneaking back again to wallow in his own foulness. But I snuffed out his wretched life, and made his people into mine. I have dealt with guilds and agencies; I have treated with diplomats and ministers. I have threatened presidents and faced down kings, and shown the petty states of Lerela that we of Stranglehold stand athwart their trade routes. Now they value our friendship, and fear our enmity. I have turned this rock from pirate’s nest into a nation, and I am its queen.”
Hesperus snatched off his twixtear cap, sweeping it across his chest in a low and fulsome bow. “An honour and a rare delight, your majesty! I confess I was incredulous that such an oaf, such a boor as Sunderling could have wrought the transformations I have witnessed upon this station. That he could gain such wealth, such power as I have seen here displayed on Stranglehold! But of course, I should have realised that this could only have come about through your efforts, your judgement, your keen intelligence. I always knew that you were in all respects that brute’s true superior.”
“Indeed?” Arae looked at him, her blue eyes wide. “And yet it was to that brute that you sold me, Hesperus.”
“Oh, ah, um,” said Hesperus, conscious of the sealed doors behind him. “Perhaps … not an ideal choice but nonetheless I made every effort to locate you within an environment where your natural talents would ensure your future prosperity and in this regard it delights me to see how much you have flourished surpassed even my wildest expectations to become a queen a golden rose a shining jewel—”
“Shut,” said Arae, raising one black gauntlet and aiming a finger precisely at the spot between Hesperus’s eyes, “your flapping mouth.”
Hesperus’s lips closed with a faint clap. Arae stepped towards him. The interwoven metal plates and bands of her pressure suit slid and locked and slid again with every movement of her body. She reached up her right hand and touched his chin, the servo motors in her armour singing thin gnat-songs, gliding down the razor’s edge of audible. Her shoulders rose and fell fractionally to the rhythm of her breathing.
“You sold me,” she said, her left arm rigid, pointing back to where Sunderling’s body stood, “to that thing.” The hard fingers of her gauntlet dug into Hesperus’s jaw. “Did you make a profit?” she asked.
Hesperus rolled his eyes, and let out a small, nasal squeak.
Arae’s fingers twitched against his throat. “I ask again: did, you make, a profit?”
“Eech, huah, ah, not much – to be honest, I’m sorry, no, not much of one.”
A pause. Arae snatched her hand
away. “I did not think so.” She turned and paced back towards the centre of the room, where she stood, studying the expression frozen onto Sunderling’s face.
“Arae, my lady, your majesty,” said Hesperus, “I – I am truly, truly most sorry for what I – for my part in, in—”
She held up a hand. “I did consider having you killed,” she said. “Killed, skinned, stuffed. I would have stood your remains here also. A small tableau.” She turned her face towards him, unsmiling. “But that may have seemed … eccentric. Caprice, I have found, is tolerated in monarchs; outright madness too can often go unremarked. But people frown on mere eccentricity.” She gave a small sigh. “The demands of state.”
“If – if there is anything I can do, any service I can provide, to, to make up for … I am not rich but—”
“No, you’re not, are you? And I am. Rich and powerful. Feared and respected. Loved, even, by my citizens. What would be crimes for you are acts of policy for me. Police and bounty-hunters pursue you for your transgressions; for mine, statesmen beg me to negotiate. We exist within different universes, Hesperus. I could kill you, destroy you and your ship, erase each last particle from the galaxy – but to what end? Now you are here I find the only thing you can do for me is to continue in your failed existence.” She turned her back on him. “You wish to use the station’s drydock. Very well: but you will pay the full commercial rate, in advance, with an additional premium to be specified by my dockmaster according to the decrepitude of your ship. Further, all your payments must be made in hard assets: a promissory from the Co-operative is scarcely more reliable than one from you.” She raised an admonitory hand. “But there must be limits, even to my mercy: any disruption, any action you may commit which disturbs the smooth operation of my station, will result in your ship being seized and you and all your crew being sold to the first slave-dealer stupid enough to make a bid for you. Or,” she glanced over her shoulder, once, and looked away again; “or more likely I shall simply have you ejected through the nearest airlock. There is little sense in devaluing an already depressed market.” She twitched a single finger, and the double doors swung open. “You may go.”
Hesperus opened his mouth, then closed it again. He realised he was clutching his twixtear cap in front of him with both his hands, and had twisted it badly out of shape. He fluttered it, and bowed once more. He shuffled backwards through the stateroom doors, then turned and fled down the access tube, through the airlock and off the ship.