2 Erbe 1117: Girar – Tlianke/Hinterworlds (1205 B645766-9 M Ag O:1104 A 322 Na M4V M5D)
Impact Point turned out to be a surface dome, located in an impact crater in the ice near the edge of the starport complex. I hadn’t expected the name to be quite that literal.
A tube connected the dome to the tunnel network, so at least we didn’t have to go outside. Girar did a good job of keeping the complex heated–better than the half-freezing tunnels we had encountered on Kupakii–but it was still a bit on the cool side. Inevitable when you live inside an icecap, I suppose. But I was glad we didn’t have to go into the sub-zero temps outside.
The crater was about a third full of drifting snow, but they kept the area around the dome cleared, giving views of… piles of snow and the crater walls. The top of the dome was below the edge of the crater. I guess the place was popular because you could at least see “outside,” even though there wasn’t much there.
Saahna and I had gotten there fairly early. The place was wide open inside; scattered tables around a circular bar in the center. The kitchens, or fabricators more likely, were somewhere below us.
Fortunately, we got a table near one edge of the dome. The place was crowded despite the early hour, but that was somewhat expected for a starport. I made sure to drop our arrival agent’s name as we checked in and we followed a waitbot to our table. Once the waitbot had delivered our orders, I pulled up my comp and started going through our cargo.
Everything was in the warehouse, and the freight we had carried was tagged for pickup by the local brokers. I posted our cargo and requested price to the local boards, including the cargo from Tahma and Kol’toi, though I priced those at what I knew was unreasonably high. If someone did buy it for some reason then… I’m not sure what I would do.
I also posted our destination as Gashuumi and opened us up for passengers. Partially because I had realized that Dr. Korvusar was right–it did make us look suspicious–but mostly because I hadn’t realized how dull a week in Jumpspace was without passengers on board. Sometimes a bit of distraction was good.
I was just finishing up when Varan pulled out the seat next to me and dropped into it. “Hey, how’s everything going?”
“Just finished setting all of our cargo up for sale. All of our cargo.”
He nodded at that. “Yeah, sounds good. How about you, Saahna? This guy ignoring you?” There was a pause. “Saahna?”
Saahna was staring out through the dome at the sky to the south, a blank expression on her face. I reached over and touched her arm. “Hey? You OK?”
She flinched, looked around for a moment in confusion, then looked at us. “Oh! Varan!” she said, acting as if she had just woken up. “How long… Glad you’re here.”
I frowned in concern. Her drink had barely been touched, and the breakfast bowl she had ordered was sitting uneaten and cold on her plate. “Are you OK?”
“Yeah, I…” She looked around, then looked at her plate to see what I was looking at, then glanced at her comp.
“That’s… weird,” she said, finally. “I thought I had just glanced over there for a few seconds.”
I looked to the south. The sky was a constant array of flashes as the icy debris spun in orbit. It was almost hypnotic; as if it was trying to impart a message that I couldn’t quite understand.
I forced myself to look away. “Yeah… Maybe we… won’t do that.”
Varan was staring towards the south and didn’t seem to register what I had just said. He also didn’t look away when the waitbot dropped off his order. I tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, you still with us?”
He jerked and looked around. Saahna was looking at him too while trying to avoid looking to the south herself.
“Maybe we should get a different table,” he said after shaking his head.
“Yeah. Hypnotic, isn’t it,” said Saahna.
“Just… don’t look that way. Not many ways to not see the sky.”
“We could move over there,” she said, pointing at the opposite side of the dome. “Worse view of the southern sky from there. I think the view of the glitter belt is considered a bonus. We’ll… skip that.”
“Yeah, probably,” I said. I should have thought of that. I apparently hadn’t done enough homework on Girar. I waved the waitbot over.
—-
We were just settling down at the new table–a bit further from the edge of the dome but where the view south was mostly blocked by the bar in the middle of the room–when I saw Do’rex and Shelly enter. I waved in their direction, and they headed towards us.
Do’rex clicked as he pulled out his seat. The waitbot floated over and took his order then remained there, hovering. I wondered what it was waiting on, then glanced around.
Shelly was standing about halfway between the entrance and the table, staring at the southern sky. I saw Varan starting to stand up, but I waved him back to his seat and got up myself.
I walked up to her. She didn’t notice my arrival, but I heard her speaking.
“It’s talking!” She was saying, over and over. “The sky is really talking!”
“Shelly?” I said as I came up. She didn’t react, so I touched her arm. “Shelly?”
She still didn’t react. “I can… hear it!”
“Shelly!” I took a grip on her arm and shook her. She suddenly jerked awake and pulled away. “What?”
“Are you OK?”
“Yeah, I…” She looked around in confusion for a moment, then grabbed both of my arms. “Derek! The sky is talking to me! The sky is talking to me!”
“It’s the Glitter Belt,” I said, looking at her. “It’s just a bunch of broken-up ice fragments. It isn’t saying anything!”
“But the sky! It…” She trailed off. “Derek?”
“You OK?”
She took a deep breath, then nodded. “Yeah, I’m… that was weird!”
“Yeah, it’s gotten a couple of us too. Keep your eyes down and head to the table.”
She followed me back and took the seat next to Do’rex. I waited as she gave her order to the still-waiting waitbot then turned back to the table.
“OK, let’s get this started.”
“We aren’t waiting on Jami? Or the doctor?” asked Saahna.
“Actually, I think the faster we get out of here, the better off we’ll all be.” I glanced at Shelly, who was leaning back and staring southward again. “Shelly! Focus! Meeting!”
She jerked and turned to me. “Oh! Yeah! OK.”
“Good. Everyone, look at me. I guess we’ve figured out why this place is characterized as a ‘Puzzle World.’ I also can guess as to why our dock contact sent us here; people probably order any amount of food and drink while staring at that thing. So let’s get this done then make sure we all get out of here.”
Everyone nodded, except for Shelly, who was again staring towards the south. Do’rex tapped her firmly with a tentacle, and she turned back. “What?”
“Look at me!”
“What?”
“Look at me!” I saw her wince, then deliberately stare at me. “What?”
“OK, this was a bad spot. My mistake. I won’t make it again. I just wanted to get everyone up to speed on our downtime plans.” I paused, then turned to Saahna. “You still have that music program?”
“Sure. Your background music is coming up.” She tapped on her comp then tossed her remote onto the table. “OK, if they’re using the same system here that they were on Tlianke then no one is listening to us. If they aren’t…” She shrugged.
“All we can do.” I turned back to the table. “OK, we’ve transferred almost all of our freight, and I’ve opened our cargo to bids. I’ve also opened us up for passengers to Gashuumi, so we need to be ready for those.” I paused. “Shelly… you really need to be paying attention to this.”
She leaned forward again, visibly angry. “What!?”
“Look. At. Me.” She was apparently more susceptible to whatever was going on with the flashes from the Glitter Belt, so I needed to really keep her attention. “Please, focus on me.”
“I am listening to you!”
“Then look at me as well!” I sighed as I saw her flush and look away. “Look at me!”
“What!”
“I know it’s hypnotic, but we need to get through this. Then… you need to get back underground. Trust me.”
“What?”
“OK, let’s do this as fast as we can. We’ve transferred all of our freight, the cargo is up for bids, and we’re open for passengers. Anyone have anything else?”
“Are we not waiting for Jami? Or Doctor Korvusar?” That was Saahna.
“Jami is probably ahead of us and already had someone tell her not to come up here. And Doctor Korvusar is confident enough that we’ll keep her on-board that I won’t argue. But we’ll take passengers because we don’t need any more attention than we’re already attracting.”
Varan frowned. “Most of which is because of Doctor Korvusar.
I shook my head. “No. She’s right. We have to look like a normal Free Trader. If we look too much like we’re supporting Boilingbrook, or the Imperium, or anyone else, then we’ve got problems. But, if we’re supporting ourselves? We’re good.”
“Sounds good to me!” Varan glanced to the south, caught himself, then started looking at his comp.
I looked around. Shelly was leaning back and staring to the south again, and Saaha was staring uncomfortably at me. Only Do’rex seemed unconcerned.
“OK, then let’s get out of here.” Most of us stood up. Shelly kept staring southward.
“I will take care of her,” said Do’rex, tapping her on her shoulder again. She glanced around in confusion.
“Great. Let’s… all get out of here.” I headed for the exit.
—-
Once back safely underground, everyone headed their own way. I started looking for another bar; one without a view of the outside. I finally found one that looked like it would meet my needs; a narrow place with a garishly painted front door named Samone’s.
Inside it was barely wide enough for a row of curtained booths to the left and a bar to the right. There was a single table in front, but no one seemed to be using it. The place was crowded, by Girar standards anyway; compared to Tlianke the place was empty. Most of the customers appeared to be locals, but I saw a few ship’s jumpsuits and some civilian outfits among the striped jumpsuits and monoculars.
All of the curtains were closed on the booths, and I didn’t want to presume to take one. The only open section of the bar was closer to the middle than I usually liked, but I found a seat between two locals and an obvious offworlder who looked like he had been there for a while. I pulled out my comp and checked on it; we had a couple of cargo bids already, but no sign of passengers. I wasn’t worried; it was still early in the week.
A surprisingly upbeat bartender came over and dropped a beer mat and menu in front of me. “New in?”
“Yeah, last night. That obvious.”
He laughed. “Most of the free traders who come through stop in here, eventually. The serious ones anyway.”
“Oh?”
“No offworlder comes by this place for the ambiance. You’re here because you’re looking for someone; you just don’t know who yet.”
“That obvious?”
“Experience. My wife and I have been running this place since before Tlianke moved in.”
“You don’t look it.”
“Thanks. So, what are you having?”
“What’s the local pale?”
“Glitterbelt Falllout. Want one?”
“Sure. And some tama leaves.”
“You got it.” He left and busied himself behind the counter. I frowned. Something felt off. He was being a bit too open.
He came back and dropped my order in front of me. “So… who are you looking for? I know it isn’t a companion for your stay; this is the wrong place for that.”
I frowned and looked around. He glanced at the people sitting next to me, then nodded.
The two locals to my left stood up with their drinks and moved a few seats down. The person to my right just coughed then turned to look at me.
“So, how was the view from Impact Point?”
I froze. How had I misjudged things this badly? I was better than that. I wished I hadn’t let Saahna wander off, remembered the snub pistol under my jacket, and looked to see who was between me and the door.
“Relax…” said the bartender, holding up his hand. “I’m Kanar. This is Darrin.” He gestured to the man beside me. “You’re Derek Kodai, captain of the Grayswandir, right?”
I started standing up. “OK, fine. I’ll just…”
Darrin stood up as well, now between me and the door. “Captain Kodai, we just want to talk to you.”
I started looking around. I had really messed up this time. “Look, I…”
Kanar held out his hand. “Really! We just want to meet you. We have a mutual friend. A guy named Jestin. He told us to be on the lookout for you.”
That surprised me. How had they…
“Would it help if we said we had a load of K’kree bedding materials for you?” asked Darrin.
Somehow that didn’t make me feel any better, but I took a deep breath and sat back down. “OK, you have me at a disadvantage… but should we…”
Kanar gestured at the ceiling. “We’ve got dampeners. Even they aren’t hearing us. So… how can we help you?”
I was still a bit unnerved. “I’m still not good at this shroud and vibroblade shit. What… and how…”
“I’ve got this,” said Darrin, waving to Kanar. “You take care of your other customers.” Kanar nodded and moved down the bar.
“OK,” he said. “Yeah, the first few times are a bit unnerving but… you’ll get the hang of it.”
“So… how? I thought I…”
“You’ve been acting like a normal Free Trader that just happened to get in a bit over their heads. Good job on that, by the way. Most people would have panicked and done something stupid. That’s why we trusted you.”
“Who is we?”
He glanced around, then back. “All you need to know is that we’re friends with Jestin. Well, friends of friends. Normally I’m stationed on Tlianke but because of their ‘Aunt Amelia is watching you’ government there I couldn’t risk approaching you. So I pointed someone else at you.”
“Tahma and Kol’toi.”
“Yeah, they’re earnest, but… even newer at this than you are. You were the best option we had. I pointed them at you and then got on the first ship I could to meet you here. We know your reputation, and we were pretty sure you would find this place. That’s why we have Kanar and Samone working for us here.”
“Who is ‘us’?”
“Doesn’t matter. We’re on your side. Or you’re on our side. It doesn’t matter what the side is. We’re both on the same one.”
“That isn’t an answer, but… OK. I can tell I won’t get one anyway. So… you know about our deal back on Tlianke?”
“Yeah. That code for preferred trader status that you got? It had a few subcodes in it. That let us know when you got in-system. Then… Well, Jestin sent us the biometrics he got from you back when you were on Boilingbrook. We just had to wait for you to walk in the door.”
“And if I hadn’t?”
“Then we’d have come looking for you. Great job with Minister Trakon by the way. We hadn’t expected something quite that serious would occur, but you handled it well. Jestin was happy if that matters.”
I was getting irritated. “So you know who we are and what we’ve been doing. But again… who the hells are you?”
“I can’t give you an answer to that that you will like. Just know that we’re all on the same side and that we can help you. The less you know about us, then the less you can reveal if you get caught. Hells, even you know more about us than Kanar knows. It has to be that way.”
He leaned forward. “OK, you’ve got some cargo to deliver, but you can’t do it openly. We have our own reasons for wanting to help the people here. Tlianke is… making a few alliances that we don’t want. We like the Hinterworlds the way they are, thank-you-very-much. You’re helping us, so we’re helping you. Now, what was your plan for delivery?”
I hesitated, shrugged, then told him what we had come up with. He nodded.
“Yeah, that’s… pretty good actually. I’m not local, so I don’t know any local brokers that would let you rebuy things, but I’m sure that Kanar knows someone. Your instincts were right; this is the place to come to for making ‘deals.’ I’ll have him get someone for you. Now, if you will excuse me.” He stood up and pulled a secure bag from under the bar.
“I’ve finished delivering to my ‘secure contracts’ here so now I need to get on a ship heading for my next destination, using a last-minute booking. To protect my clients’ confidentiality, of course. See you around the Galaxy.” He walked off, stopping long enough to say something to Kanar before exiting.
I turned back to my untouched beer and tama leaves. I had really walked right into it this time. They had my biometric signature? What else did they know about me? Us. What could I do about it?
I briefly wondered if I should tell the crew, then shook my head. No secrets. They were in this as much as I was. Hells, all of them had been in the Uptown Downport with me, so if Jestin had my signature, then he had all of theirs as well.
Again, I wondered how deep the biowaste I had stepped in was.
Kanar returned, gesturing at my beer. “Another?”
“Yeah, thanks. And… I do need to find someone.”
“Darrin said you had something. So… who do you need?”
I hesitated. “Who are you people? Really?”
“What? You don’t know who you’re working with?”
“No, because they’re so secretive that it’s making me wonder if I should trust them. I just delivered a datastick, dammit! What is this all about?”
“You… delivered a datastick?”
“Yeah, then stopped an assassination attempt against a member of the Boilingbrook council. And I’m sure you’ve heard what they’ve gotten up to. So I’m involved, yeah. But I don’t know what I’m involved in!”
He looked around, then leaned conspiratorially forwards. “You really don’t know?”
My guess had been correct; he was even newer at this than I was. “No. I got involved, and it just keeps following me. If someone would explain then maybe I could at least be focusing in the right direction.”
He looked around again. “You… aren’t Imperial, are you?”
“Only in that our registry is Imperial. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of theirs if that matters.”
“Good.” He seemed to relax. “Look, out here in the Hinterworlds, we’ve always been caught between everyone. The Imperium and the Solomani on one side, the Centaurs and the Starfish on the other. At least you guys are human.” He smiled quickly at that.
“As long as the Imperium was the major polity, we could play along nicely, and everyone more-or-less left us alone. But now? Your Imperium has decided to start fighting itself, and all of us are left to fend for ourselves.”
“Some of us think the best thing we can do is to stay independent. We don’t want the Imperium or the Solomani. But… There are several Solomani cruisers in orbit right now.”
That surprised me. I was sure I would have noticed a Solomani beacon on the sensors coming in, almost as fast as Saahna or the Grayswandir itself would have. The Imperium may have fought its last few wars against the Zhodani, but the Solomani Rim Wars were still the ones they taught everyone about in school.
“Where?”
“In the Glitter Belt. They’re up there, running silent. Not too many, maybe 5 or 6. The people back on Tlianke signed some kind of alliance with them a few months back. Maybe a year. They haven’t made it public yet because while most of us may not like the Imperium, we’d still take them over the Sols. But they signed the deal thinking the Sols would protect us from the Imperials. But now that the Imperials are busy the Solomani are pushing the terms of the deal. They would like nothing more than a client state in the coreward end of the Hinterworlds. We need Girar to be able to claim some kind of independence before the Sols take over everything Tlianke owns.”
I groaned. This was precisely the kind of thing I hadn’t want to get involved with. I just wanted to be a Free Trader, not someone involved in politics. And now it wasn’t even subsector politics. The Solomani? Seriously?
I could have been a Count if I had wanted to be. I could have administered a planet, albeit with the “benevolent” Imperium looking over my shoulder. I hadn’t wanted that, so I left and never looked back. Now, somehow, I was involved in the political future of the subsector, if not the entire sector itself.
I never wanted this. But… there was the right thing to do and a wrong thing to do. And… I had to do what I thought was the right thing.
I had seen what the Imperium did to worlds that went against them. I had no illusions that the Solomani were any better.
“I’ve got a cargo I need to deliver to someone, without anyone knowing that I delivered it to them. At a place outside the starport; beneath the Glitter Belt. I’ve put it up for sale at an, honestly, unreasonable price. I need a broker who will buy it from me then let me immediately repurchase it from them, secretly. Then I have to either deliver it to the lower latitudes myself or get someone I believe I can trust to deliver it for me. Can you find someone to do that?
He nodded, earlier concerns forgotten. “Sure. I know someone. I’ll call her and see when she can get here. So… you want another?”
I nodded, and he quickly brought me a new beer as well as some more tama leaves. It wasn’t the only one. I stayed there for several hours before someone suddenly sat down next to me.
“I hear you’re looking for a broker with local connections?”
I looked over. She was a somewhat heavyset woman with scraggly, dirty blonde hair. She was wearing the standard Tlianke jumpsuit, but she had strips of reflective tape stuck across the stripes. There was a series of tattoos along her arm that resembled the stripes, though I was sure they meant something completely different.
I stuck out my hand. “Derek Kodai, captain of the Grayswandir. Thanks for taking the time.”
“Yeah, yeah, drop the polite conversation. I understand you’re in a bit of a mess and need someone to fix it. I’m Bettis. Bettis Nylan. I fix messes. So… what do you have?”
I was a bit taken aback by the attitude but didn’t have many other choices. I explained the cargo we had picked up on Tlianke and what we wanted to do with it.
She thought for a moment. “Pay me a kCred more than you sell it to me for, and I’ll just give it back to you. Pay 5 kCreds, and I’ll deliver it to your client without you having to risk your ship in the Glitter Belt. Sound good?”
I decided I really didn’t want to deal with this any more than I had to. Besides, Jestin’s people were the ones who sent her to us. “The 5k option works for me.” I pulled up my comp, set up the trade, then flicked it towards her. “That work?”
She tapped on her thighpad, stared into the distance at her monocular, then nodded. “Looks good. We’ll pick up the cargo tonight then deliver it a few days from now. Though if a government patrol is waiting we’ll abort and just sell it somewhere else.”
“That’s honestly what I would have done, and you’re probably better at recognizing them than us. Just… let me know if the people taking the delivery have something else they want from us.”
She rolled her eyes. “Hey, listen. This isn’t my first reentry. I’ve got your comm and encryption codes. I’ll let you know.”
She downed the drink that Darrin had brought her, then stood up. “Thanks, Captain. Maybe we’ll do business again.” She turned and left the bar.
Darrin was almost immediately back. “So… did that work?”
“I suppose. In any case, it isn’t my problem anymore. That’s all I care about.”
“So… where are you off to next?”
“Gashuumi. Why?”
“Just in case. We get people in here from time-to-time asking about trustworthy ships leaving, and I just wanted to know of one I could name. Thanks.”
“And you!” I said, with more enthusiasm than I really felt. I closed out my tab and headed back to the room I was sharing with Saahna.
—-
She wasn’t there. I sighed at not having someone to talk to. Apparently, we weren’t leaving our past behind. All I can do is react to what it brought us. It’s still a bit early, but I’m going to bed.