Darcy waited impassively. They had used the Buchannans as an information source in the past, occasionally asking them to pick up fleks from assets upriver. But they had proved so unreliable and cranky, Darcy hadn’t bothered with them for the last twenty months.
Len Buchannan walked forward from the little engine room, where he’d been patching the cabin walls. He was wearing jeans and his cap, a carpenter’s suede utility belt hanging loosely round his skinny hips, with only a few tools in its hoops.
Darcy thought he looked hungover, which fitted the talk he’d heard around the port. The Coogan had hit hard times of late.
“Have you got a cargo to take upriver?” Darcy asked.
“No,” Len said sullenly.
“It’s been a difficult season for us,” Gail said. “Things aren’t like they used to be. Nobody shows any loyalty these days. Why, if it wasn’t for us virtually giving our goods away half of the settlements upriver would have starved to death. But do they show any gratitude? Ha!”
“Is the Coogan fit to be taken out?” Darcy asked, cutting through the woman’s screed. “Now? Today?”
Len pulled his cap off and scratched his head. “Suppose so. Engines are OK. I always service them regular.”
“Of course it’s in tiptop shape,” Gail told him loudly. “There’s nothing wrong with the Coogan’s hull. It’s only because this drunken buffoon spends all his time pining away over that little bitch-brat that the cabin’s in the state it is.”
Len sighed irksomely, and leant against the galley doorframe. “Don’t start,” he said.
“I knew she was trouble,” Gail said. “I told you not to let her on board. I warned you. And after all we did for her.”
“Shut up!”
She glared at him and resumed slicing up the cream-white vegetable.
“What do you want the Coogan for?” Len asked.
“We have to get upriver, today,” Darcy said. “There’s no cargo, only us.”
Len made a play of putting his cap back on. “There’s trouble upriver.”
“I know. That’s where we want to go, the Quallheim Counties.”
“No,” Len Buchannan said. “Sorry, anywhere else in the tributary basin, but not there.”
“That’s where she came from,” Gail hissed venomously. “That’s what you’re afraid of.”
“There’s a bloody war going on up there, woman. You saw the boats with the posse leaving.”
“Ten thousand fuseodollars,” Gail said. “And don’t you two try haggling with me, that’s the only offer you’ll get, I’m starving myself as it is. I’ll take you up on my own if Lennie’s too frightened.”
<> Darcy said.
“This is my boat,” Len said. “Made with my own hands.”
“Half yours,” Gail shouted back, waving the knife at him. “Half! I have a say too, and I say Coogan is going back to the Quallheim. If you don’t like it, go and cry in her skirts if she’ll have you. Drunken old fool.”
<> Lori said. She watched Len staring at the burnt-out sections of the port, his brown weathered face lost with longing.
“All right,” he said eventually. “I’ll take you to the mouth of the Quallheim, or as near as we can get. But I’m not going anywhere near the trouble.”
“Fair enough,” Darcy said. “How long will it take us at full speed?”
“Going upriver?” Len closed his eyes, lips moving around figures.
“Without stopping to trade, ten or twelve days. Mind, we’ll have to moor in the evenings, and cut logs. You’ll have to work your passage.”
“Forget that,” Darcy said. “I’ll have some firewood delivered this afternoon, enough to get us there in one go; we can store it in the forward hold instead of a cargo. And I’ll spell you at night, I don’t need much sleep. How long travelling like that?”
“A week, maybe,” Len Buchannan said. He didn’t seem terribly happy with the idea.
“That’s fine. We’ll start this afternoon.”
“We’ll take half of the money now, as a deposit,” Gail said. A Jovian Bank disk appeared from nowhere in her hand.
“You’ll get a thousand now as a deposit, plus five hundred to buy enough food and water for three weeks,” Lori said. “I’ll pay another two thousand once we leave the harbour this afternoon, two more when we get to Schuster, and the sum when we get back here.”
Gail Buchannan made a lot of indignant noise, but the sight of actual cash piling up in her disk silenced her.
“Make sure it’s decent food,” Lori told her. “Freeze dried, I’m sure you know where to get stocks of that from.”
They left the Buchannans bickering and went on to a lumber-yard to arrange for the logs to be delivered. It took an hour longer than it should have done to get their order sorted out; the only reason they got it at all was because they were regular customers. The yard was frantically busy with an order for a thousand tonnes of mayope. The laughing foreman told them a lunatic starship captain was planning to carry it to another star.
They were going to make Joshua Calvert’s deadline. Marie Skibbow couldn’t keep the thought out of her mind. It was mid-afternoon, and she was sitting up at the bar in the nearly deserted Crashed Dumper having a celebratory drink. What she really felt like doing was singing and dancing, it was a wonderful experience. All the contacts she’d meticulously built up over the last few months had finally paid off. The deals she put together had clicked into place all the way down the line, smoothing the way for the wood to get from the lumber-yard into orbit with minimum fuss and maximum speed. In fact it had turned out they were being limited by how fast Ashly Hanson could load the foam-covered bundles into the Lady Macbeth’s cargo holds. The starship only carried one MSV, which imposed a two hundred and fifty tonne per day restriction.
The pilot simply couldn’t work any faster; and not even Marie could obtain a MSV from Kenyon, which was the only other place they were in use within the Lalonde star system. But even so, they should have the last bundle loaded tomorrow, a day before the deadline.
Her Jovian Bank disk was burning like a small thermal-induction field in her sawn-off jeans pocket. Joshua had paid her on the nose, every McBoeing flight that lifted off the spaceport’s metal grid runway saw another batch of fuseodollars added to her account. And he’d given her a bonus for arranging the lorries. The drivers were taking colonists’ farmsteading gear from the spaceport down to the harbour and returning half-empty; it didn’t take much organization or money to fix it so they brought the mayope with them when they came back. That way Joshua saved money on an official contract with the haulage company that owned them.
Her first major-league deal. She sipped her iced brightlime, enjoying the bitter taste as it went down her throat. Was this how millionaires felt every day? The total satisfaction which came from tangible accomplishment. And all the famous merchant names in history must have started with a first deal like this, even Richard Saldana, who founded Kulu. Now there was a thought.
But there weren’t many opportunities for deals this big on Lalonde. She simply had to leave, that goal had never changed. The money from the deal would be a hefty slice towards the eighteen thousand fuseodollars she needed for a basic set of neural nanonics. Joshua would probably pay her an overall bonus as well. He was honest enough.
Which brought her to the real question of the day: whether or not she was going to go to bed with him. He had certainly asked her often enough over the last four days. He was handsome, if a trifle gaunt, with a good-looking body; and he must be talented after all the girls he’d been with. An owner-captain under twenty-five years old, it would surely run into hundreds. Especially with that grin. He must practise it; so sexy.
She rather liked the notion of what they’d be capable of doing to each other if they flung off every inhibition. There had been rumours back at the arcology
about the prowess of people geneered for spaceflight, something to do with enhanced flexibility.
And if she did—which she probably would—he might just take her with him when he left. It really wasn’t a possibility she could afford to ignore.
After Norfolk he said he was planning on returning to Tranquillity. That habitat was premier real estate, superior even to Earth and Kulu. I’ve already whored my way down the river; whoring to Tranquillity would hardly be a hardship after that.
The Crashed Dumper’s door creaked open. A young man in a blue and red checked shirt and long khaki shorts walked in, and sat down at the other end of the bar. He never even glanced at Marie, which was odd. She was wearing her sawn-off jeans and a dark-orange singlet, long limbs on show.
His face looked familiar, early twenties, ruggedly attractive with a neatly trimmed beard. His clothes were new, and clean, made locally. Was he one of Durringham’s new generation of merchants? She’d met a lot of them since she got the job at the embassy, and they were always keen to talk while they waited for Ralph Hiltch, her boss.
She pouted slightly. There, if she had neural nanonics she’d have no trouble placing the name.
“Beer, please,” he told the barkeeper.
The voice fixed him, it just took a moment for her incredulity to die down. No wonder she hadn’t recognized him to start with. She went over to him.
“Quinn Dexter, what the bloody hell are you doing here?” He turned slowly, blinking at her uncertainly in the pub’s filtered light. She held back on a laugh, because it was obvious he didn’t recognize her either.
His fingers clicked, and he smiled. “Marie Skibbow. Glad to see you made it to the big city. Everybody wondered if you would. They didn’t stop talking about you for a month.”
“Yeah, well ...” She sat on the stool next to him as he paid for his beer from a thick wad of Lalonde francs. That wasn’t right, Ivets didn’t have hard cash. She waited until the barkeeper went away then dropped her voice. “Quinn, don’t tell people who you are. They’re killing Ivets in this town right now. It’s pretty nasty.”
“No problem. I’m not an Ivet any more. I bought myself out of my work time contract.”
“Bought yourself out?” Marie had never known you could do that.
“Sure,” he winked. “Everything on this planet is financially orientated.”
“Ah, right. How did you buy it? Don’t tell me dear old Aberdale started being successful.”
“No, not a chance, it never changed. I found some gold in the river.”
“Gold?”
“Yes, a nugget you wouldn’t believe.” He held up his hand, making a fist.
“This big, Marie, and that’s the honest truth. So I kept going back, there was nothing ever as big as that first one, but I built up quite a little hoard. They thought it must have washed down from the mountains on the other side of the savannah, remember them?”
“God, don’t remind me. I don’t want to remember anything about that village.”
“Can’t say I blame you. First thing I did was get out. Sailed straight down the Juliffe on a trader boat; took me a week and I got ripped off by the captain, but here I am. Arrived today.”
“Yeah, I got ripped off too.” Marie studied her glass of brightlime. “So what’s happening upriver, Quinn? Have the Ivets really taken over the Quallheim Counties?”
“It was all news to me when we docked this morning. There was nothing like that in the offing when I left. Maybe they’re fighting over the gold. Whoever owns the motherlode is going to be seriously rich.”
“They’ve sent a load of sheriffs and deputies up there, armed to the teeth.”
“Oh, dear. That doesn’t sound good. Guess I’m lucky I got out when I did.”
Marie realized how hot she had become in the last couple of minutes. When she glanced up she saw the fans had stopped spinning. Bloody typical, right when the sun was at its zenith. “Quinn? How are my family?”
“Well ...” He pulled a sardonic face. “Your father’s not changed much.”
She lifted her glass level with her face. “Amen.”
“Let’s see; your mother’s OK, your brother-in-law is OK. Oh yes, Paula’s pregnant.”
“Really? God, I’ll be an aunt.”
“Looks like it.” He took a swig of his beer.
“So what are you going to do now?”
“Leave. Get on a starship and go, some planet where I can start over.”
“There was that much gold?” she asked.
“Yeah, that much, and then some.”
Marie thought fast, weighing up her options. “I can get you off Lalonde by tomorrow afternoon, and not back to Earth either, this is a fresh planet the captain is heading for. Clean air, open spaces, and a rock-solid economy.”
“Yeah?” Quinn brightened considerably. The overhead fans began to turn again.
“Yes. I have a contact in the ship, but I charge commission for introducing you.”
“You really landed on your feet, didn’t you?”
“I do OK.”
“Marie, there weren’t any girls on the boat down the river.”
She wasn’t sure how he had suddenly got so close. He was pressed up beside her, and his presence was sending fissures of doubt straight through her self-confidence. Something about Quinn was monstrously intimidating, verging on menacing. “I can help there, I think. I know a place, the girls are clean.”
“I don’t want a place, Marie. Dear God, seeing you sitting there triggered all those memories I thought I’d put behind me.”
“Quinn,” she said laconically.
“You think I can help it? You were every Ivet’s wet dream back at Aberdale, we’d spend hours talking about you. There’d be fights over who got on the work detail to your homestead. I did, I got it every time, I made bloody sure I did.”
“Quinn!”
“You were everything I could never have, Marie. Damn Christ, I worshipped you, you were perfection, everything that was right and good in the world.”
“Don’t, Quinn.” Her head was spinning, making her dizzy. What he was saying was crazy, he’d never even noticed her when he walked in the Crashed Dumper. It was so hot, the sweat was running down her back. His arm went round her, making her look into fevered eyes.
“And now here you are again. My very own idol. Like God gave me a second chance. And I’m not giving up this chance, Marie. Whatever it takes, I want you. I want you, Marie.” Then his lips were on hers.
She was shaking against him when he finished the kiss. “Quinn no,” she mumbled. He tightened his grip, squashing her against him. His chest felt as though it was carved from rock, every muscle a steel band. She couldn’t understand why she wasn’t pushing him away. But she wasn’t, the thought was inconceivable.
“I’m going to make it so good you’re never going to leave me,” he said in a frantic whisper. “I’m going to make you see I’m the one for you, that there is no one else in the whole galaxy who can replace me. I’m going to take you from this atrocity of a planet when I go; and we’re going to live somewhere sweet and beautiful, where there isn’t any jungle, and people are happy. And I’m going to buy us a big house, and I’m going to make you pregnant, and our children are going to be so lovely it hurts to look at them. You’ll see, Marie. You’ll see what true love can bring when you give yourself up to me.”
There were tears in her eyes at the terrible wonderful words. Words that spoke out every dream she owned. And how could he possibly know? Yet there was only desire and yearning in his face. So maybe—please God—just maybe it was true. Because nobody could be so cruel as to lie about such things.
They leant together as they stumbled out of the Crashed Dumper, the pair of them drunk with their own brand of desire.
The Confederation Navy office on Lalonde was a two-storey structure, an oblong box sixty-five metres broad, twenty deep. The outer walls were blue-silver mirrors, broken by a single black band halfway up, which ran
round the entire circumference. The flat roof had seven satellite uplinks covered by geodesic weather casings that resembled particularly virile bright orange toadstools. Only five of them actually housed communication equipment, the other two covered maser cannon which provided a short-range defence capability. The building was situated in the eastern sector of Durringham, five hundred metres from the dumper which housed the Governor’s office.
It was a class 050-6B office, suitable for phase one colonies and non-capital missions (tropical); a programmed silicon structure made by the Lunar SII. It had arrived on Lalonde in a cubic container five metres to a side. The Fleet marine engineers who activated it had to sink corner foundations fifteen metres deep into the loam in order to secure it against the wind. The silicon walls might have been as strong as mayope, but they were only as thick as paper; it was terribly vulnerable to even mild gusts. And given Lalonde’s temperature there was some speculation that warm air accumulating inside might actually provide sufficient lift to get it airborne.
There were fifty Confederation Navy staff assigned to Lalonde: officers, NCOs, and ratings, who ate, worked, and slept inside. The most active department was the recruitment centre, where fifteen permanent staff dealt with youngsters who shared Marie Skibbow’s opinion of their world, but lacked her individual resourcefulness. Enlistment offered a golden ticket offplanet, away from the rain, the heat, and the remorseless physical labour of the farms.
Every time Ralph Hiltch walked through the wide automated entrance doors and breathed in clean, dry, conditioned air he felt just that fraction closer to home. Back in a world of right angles, synthetic materials, uniforms, humming machinery, and government-issue furniture.
A pretty rating barely out of her teens was waiting to escort him from the entrance hall where all the farmboy and -girl hopefuls were queueing in their hand-stitched shirts and mud-stained denim trousers. He opened his lightweight cagoule and shook some of the rain from it as she escorted him up the stairs and into the security zone of the second floor.