Pelquin's Comet (15 page)

Ahead of him stretched long workbenches and longer conveyor belts, around which were clustered native workers, most of whom couldn’t yet be out of their teens. A sweat shop, with the emphasis very much on the ‘sweat’; no doubt drawing on workers from the nearby shantytown.

Pale grey suits had been Drake’s uniform of choice since he first started working for the bank, but rarely had he regretted wearing one more than he did at that moment. He could feel the perspiration gathering beneath his clothes and running in ticklish drops down the side of his face. Even Mudball’s familiar weight had become an uncomfortable burden, the alien’s small body an unwelcome source of heat at his shoulder.

Not that the locals were immune. The small man who came to greet them bore testament to that, his forehead beaded with sweat. Only Leesa seemed completely unaffected. Acclimatised, obviously, but it went beyond that. There was something remarkable about her body’s absolute lack of reaction to the extreme heat and humidity, something which reassured Drake enormously. So complete was her indifference to him that he’d begun to wonder whether this really was the same person he’d known.

The enigma remained, but at least he felt more confident that she really was Leesa and not some doppelganger.

The small man greeted them with a broad smile and addressed them in a language Drake didn’t recognise. Leesa responded in the same tongue.

Mudball?

She’s just explaining what you’re doing here. The old man’s nervous at the presence of a stranger.

Drake felt a sense of amusement in the alien’s thoughts
. What?

Nothing… It’s just that her explanation of who you are has proved quite… shall I say, colourful.

I’ll bet.

She eventually turned to Drake. “This is Wai Lun.” The man clicked his heels together and performed a shallow bow. “He’s the manager here, and thinks he might have an inductor sheath that would do us.”

Her speech had improved noticeably since they left the
Comet
, as if she’d been putting on the local accent and inflection solely for Pelquin’s benefit, giving the captain what she thought he’d want to hear in order to secure a berth. Drake knew she wasn’t local, but she’d sounded it at outset.

Wai Lun led them through the long factory towards a small door at the far end.
What are they actually making here?
Drake asked, confident that Mudball would have hacked the factory’s systems by now.

Machine parts, components of all sorts.

Knock-offs
.

Indeed.

Drake did his best to turn a blind eye to the sight of so many children – and most of them were little more than that – working so hard around him, and to ignore the stench, which was even worse than it had been in the shantytown. Not his world, not anything he could influence, but the prospect of doing business with this man made his skin crawl. He knew such places existed, but knowing at a cerebral level and having his nose rubbed in the fact were entirely different.

Leesa’s half-smile as they stopped suggested she had a fair idea of what he was thinking and was enjoying his discomfort.

Wai Lun pushed open the door, which led into semi-darkness until the flick of a switch brought a neon tube light stuttering to life. The room’s opposite wall held another door, the view through that obscured by the heavy mobile strips of an industrial style plastic fly curtain hanging from its top, though Drake could make out what looked to be a serving counter and perhaps a small shop beyond. Two men’s voices in animated discussion reached them through the doorway. They were speaking the same language Wai Lun and the girl had used, exchanging phrases with machine gun rapidity.

Around them, the walls of what could only be a stock room were lined with shelves that bulged with a bewildering variety of machine parts, many of them jammed in tightly or balanced so precariously that the removal of one looked likely to bring others crashing to the floor. The room was comparatively narrow but opened up to right and left, the shelving disappearing into the gloom in both directions.

After a few more unintelligible words and a smile to the girl, Wai Lun scurried off to their left before clambering up a short set of mobile steps and starting to rummage through the parts that rested on one of the higher shelves.

“Is this our only option?” Drake asked, keeping his voice quiet despite the likelihood that Wai Lun wouldn’t understand in any case.

“How do you mean?”

He glanced across at Wai Lunn, making sure the smaller man was still busy. “Is there anywhere else we could get this sleeve of yours? Perhaps even an officially manufactured one.”

“Wai Lun produces good quality work. You’re not on New Sparta now, banker man. Copies or reconditioned jobs are as good as it gets around here. Live with it.”

“Then perhaps we could look at getting a reconditioned one…?” He suggested.

She’d turned away to answer a shouted question from Wai Lun, but shook her head vigorously, saying without looking back at Drake, “That would mean trawling through dozens of junk shops and stalls, going from street to street; and even once we found the right sized sleeve there’d be no telling how good a recon it was, how long it would last. Besides… The captain said to get this done quickly. So swallow your scruples and let me do what we came here for.”

Wai Lun had returned to ground level. He came over to them smiling broadly and clutching a part which he thrust towards the girl. It was a gleaming cylinder of silvered metal, a little longer than Drake’s forearm, slightly flattened so that it was ovoid in shape rather than circular. It was sobering to realise that a component of this size, something he could comfortably carry in his arms, was capable of grounding a starship.

Leesa examined the cylinder critically, frowned, and shook her head, passing it back to the older man with a curt comment.

He said something plaintive and gesticulated dramatically, but then turned and hurried back to the steps, pushing them noisily across the concrete floor before climbing up them again, complaining all the while.

“That would probably have done us,” Leesa said to Drake, “but it still wasn’t quite right, not if I’m going to get the extra performance out of the engines I promised the captain.”

He was surprised she took the trouble to explain herself, particularly given her earlier reserve. Perhaps having something to concentrate on had enabled her to forget for the moment whatever it was that had her spooked.

This time when Wai Lun scampered down the ladder and presented Leesa with his prize, she nodded her approval, though the proffered part looked no different to Drake than the previous one. “Yup,” she said, “that’s our boy. Pay up, banker man.”

He did. And then found himself carrying the thinly-wrapped cylinder as they left the building, moving his cane to his left hand so that he could cradle the engine part in the crook of his right arm.

If anything, Leesa seemed even more agitated as they made their way back towards the ship. She relapsed into silence and stalked through the shantytown with all the wariness of a predator that has strayed onto a rival pack’s turf.

This time, their passage wasn’t as untroubled as it might have been.

“Shit!” Leesa said.

Drake had seen them too. The same youths they’d passed on the way in, except that now there were more of them, and they made no attempt to hide their interest in the pair of outsiders. Drake saw the nudge that one gave to another, saw too the nod in their direction.

“Head down, eyes front,” Leesa murmured.

Despite Leesa’s instruction, Drake watched the cluster of youths from the corner of his eye and so saw the pack start towards them. If not for the nudge and the nod it would have been easy to assume this was a random attack – bored street kids spoiling for some action, but those gestures and the purpose with which they advanced told him otherwise. The gang had been waiting for them. Since he was new to the whole planet, they had to be after Leesa.

“Hope you can handle yourself,” she said quietly. “Because I’m gonna have my hands full and won’t be looking out for anyone else.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll cope,” he assured her, adjusting the grip on his cane and taking a few paces sideways so that they both had room to fight. He shifted the precious induction sleeve so that it rested in the crook of his left arm, conscious of its weight but confident he could hold it there in the short term without hampering his movements too much.

The disberos came on. The biggest of them, the one who’d been nudged, led the way, approaching with the sort of swagger that suggested he owned these streets. A shaved head and plenty of metalwork around the face; in fact, facial piercings seemed to be the tribal badge. This one, evidently the leader, sported several earrings, a spiked stud through his right cheek, and a pair of silver hoops which emerged from just below his bottom lip and circled downwards to disappear beneath his chin. Hardly the most practical of embellishments to take into a fight, Drake would have thought, but each to their own. Those advancing behind Hoopface all bore their own variations – studs, spikes, rings, bars, cones, and jewels thrust and displayed through cheeks, brows, lips, ears and even foreheads. Half a dozen in total; no, scratch that; another pair had appeared from the opposite side of the street and were clearly intent on joining the party. That made it eight against two. Doubtless the eight expected this to be easy. They were in for a shock, assuming Leesa hadn’t forgotten everything she used to know about fighting and he wasn’t compromised too much by the inductor sheath.

Without breaking stride, Hoopface reached with both hands to his chin, clasped the two hoops, and jerked them free of his face, before flinging them in a backhanded throw, all in one fluid movement. The nature of the attack was so unexpected it almost caught Drake by surprise, but at the last moment he raised his cane, swatting one of the two curved missiles aside and intercepting the other. For an instant, that second ring clung to his cane, three-quarters of a circle wrapped there and jangling, threatening to slide towards his hand until the missing quarter came into play and it dropped to the ground. Drake had expected sharp points or blades but in the split second that almost-ring had rattled on his cane energy had played across the cane’s smooth surface. He didn’t feel it – the cane was too well insulated for that – but it caused him to upgrade his initial assessment of the gang’s threat; they were evidently more sophisticated than they appeared. Suddenly the prospect of fighting them while holding an awkward object didn’t appeal. Drake crouched, to put the sheath on the ground and push it away behind him, before straightening and preparing to meet Hoopface, his cane held to the fore.

As the far larger man came within grappling range Drake lunged forward and jabbed him quickly with the stick, like a fencer with the tip of a foil. Hoopface laughed and let the blow land, which was a mistake. As the tip of the cane made contact, Drake activated its repellor field, magnifying the force of impact exponentially. What had been a simple prod was converted into a hammer blow; one which flung Hoopface backward, to crash into and then through the crowd of thugs behind him. The big man landed heavily several metres away, where he stayed: on his back unmoving.

Drake didn’t hesitate but waded into the stunned disberos before they had a chance to react. He kicked, punched, elbowed and swatted, knocking down two more of them before the rest could recover and muster a response. He was vaguely aware of Leesa fighting beside him but was too focused on his own battle to note more than that.

To his surprise, Drake found he was actually enjoying himself. It had been years since he was involved in a street brawl like this, and he’d forgotten how much satisfaction could be gained from kicking the life out of someone who was intent on doing the same to you.

He lost track of how many he was fighting, suspecting that others had joined the fray. Four or five lay unconscious on the ground, including Hoopface, but plenty were still on their feet.

He ducked beneath a roundhouse punch, sweeping his cane at ankle level to trip one opponent before standing and cracking another around the ear. Then they were on him, a solid body barrelling into him, arms wrapping around his torso, squeezing. He lost hold of his cane and was carried backward, stumbling to the ground.

Hey, watch it! Mind who you’re falling on,
a familiar voice said as he went over
.

He’d almost forgotten about Mudball but couldn’t afford to spare the alien a second thought. Impact with the ground had loosened the bear-hug a fraction. He kicked, writhed, bucked, twisted, and landed a solid blow with his elbow, feeling it smash against his opponent’s cheek and nose. Suddenly free, he rolled to his knees.

His ribs were bruised, his left arm was cut, his knee sore, his teeth hurt and he tasted blood in his mouth… And he was loving every ache of it.

He scrabbled to his feet, spotting the cane as he did so and stooping to retrieve it; which was when disaster struck. Mudball must have been dislodged by the recent tumble, and was clearly taken by surprise at Drake’s instinctively bending down to pick up the cane. Even as Drake straightened, he heard a dismayed yelp inside his head, felt Mudball fall free, and caught a glimpse of a brown-green tumble of fur go sailing past his ear.

He tried to grab his falling companion, missed, and the distraction cost him dearly. He looked up to find a club of some sort whistling towards his head, too close to avoid. Even as the realisation sank in and he tried to turn away, pain exploded in his right temple. He was abruptly aware of the ground rushing towards him at alarming speed, and then oblivion claimed him.

T
EN

Falyn de Souza’s mood was even darker than the oppressive sky. He stared out of the window at the rain, which had been falling incessantly all morning and showed no sign of relenting any time soon, and wished fervently that he was somewhere else. The weather had been much the same since they landed and he had yet to find anywhere decent to eat in this miserable excuse for a town.