Chapter Ten
“This is the Heart of Stone calling Balga Control. Requesting priority access.”
“Copy you Heart of Stone. State the nature of your emergency.”
“We don’t have an emergency as such, we have an urgency.”
“Sorry Heart of Stone, we have almost a hundred ships lined up waiting to be unloaded. You’ll have to join the queue.”
“We don’t have any cargo to unload. We are carrying a ransom demand.”
“Say again?”
“One of our passengers was kidnapped and we are carrying a ransom demand. We request priority access in order to get in contact with the local judiciary.”
“Copy that Heart of Stone, your request is being processed.”
“This is why I hate bureaucracy,” said Karl. “It’s the annoying bastards that ride roughshod over the rules that get anything done. Everyone who follows the rules like they’re supposed to just ends up tied down with red tape.”
“Settle down Karl,” said Captain Jeanette. “Hartz, you ever heard of a station having over a hundred ships parked at once?”
“Sure, but not too often. The loaders must be on strike or something.”
“That’d do it,” said Karl.
“Heart of Stone, this is Balga Control. You are authorized on a provisional priority approach. What is your protocol.”
“Jonix 9.0”
“Ooh, an oldie. You should upgrade to the ten version.”
“Yeah, but this ship doesn’t have the bandwidth for it. She’s too old.”
“Bummer. Sucks to be you.”
Turning to Jeanette, Karl whispered “What a cheeky bastard!”
“Okay, we have you set. We’ll bring you in hard and high. You’ll be docked at the Quarantine Lock topside in about two hours. Make sure everyone is strapped in for the final deceleration. We’ll call you again prior to engaging the maneuver.”
“Copy that Balga Control. Can you patch us through to the Judiciary?”
“Putting you through now.”
“And how are you doing today, my good Captain?” asked Erycka. She was the local representative for the company that owned the Celiker. Her job was to organize which loads were going to which destinations on which ships. Not an easy task since it was often difficult to know which ships would be showing up and which ones were diverted elsewhere. It was more art than science with a few big helpings of guesswork thrown in, and she was rather good at it. Some even whispered that she might be clairvoyant.
“I’ve had better,” replied Captain Powell. “Did you notice that there is no cargo being loaded or unloaded at the moment?”
“Yes, we have some people in with the discussions. The current sticking point seems to be the lubrication maintenance schedule for some load pins, but it should be sorted soon.”
“The lubrication what?”
“These strike negotiations have been going on for years, Captain. The main sticking points are never the main problem. It’s up to the stevedores and negotiators to distract everyone with pointless bickering over inconsequential details whilst the real negotiations take place elsewhere, behind closed doors.”
“Oh. Well, that’s not particularly comforting.”
“It’s quite the well oiled machine, if you’ll pardon the pun. I have it on good authority that the strike will be over in about another twenty minutes.”
“Ah good, so my cargo will loaded soon.”
“Actually; no, it won’t. Since this strike has delayed a few shipments, the next load has caught up with the one you were going to take. It’ll be more economical to send the entire load on one ship, probably the Labour of Love, which is currently waiting to be unloaded. I believe you know Captain Baraby?”
“Sonia? Yeah, she’s good. Good ship too. So where does that leave me?”
“I’ve secured a new load. Good job too, it’ll be a milk run.”
“Milk?”
“Sorry, old expression. It’ll be easy. You’re taking all of three boxes of optical equipment for some university study or something. Small load, easy run and a sweet on-time bonus.”
“I thought everyone was running late?”
“All the loads that were here yesterday or are meant to leave today are running late. This load wasn’t due to leave until tomorrow but it was brought forward. And I picked it up for you.”
“Where’s it going?”
“Kuparinen Station, in orbit over Elli.”
“So where’s the catch?”
“Sadly, I don’t get to say anything about spending the night in a haunted house; however there is one tricky part. You’ll need to undock and rendezvous directly with the Fallen Angel and do an open-air transfer. Since it’s only three boxes, it should be fairly easy. And since you’ll be able to leave the lock without waiting to be loaded, you can leave pretty much right now, which gives you an early departure bonus. And since you’ll be clearing a spot for one of the waiting ships, I also managed to negotiate a nice little bonus for that as well, of which you get twenty five percent.”
“I thought we were running late.”
“The load that the Labour of Love will be taking is leaving late, or rather it was since it is now the new load combined. The optical stuff is a fresh load that’s meant to leave tomorrow.”
“Will the load be damaged from being exposed to vacuum?”
“Nope, it’s all sealed up tight. Everybody wins.”
Powell breathed out heavily. “You’re a miracle worker, Erycka.”
“Damn straight I am. Next time you’re in town, you owe me dinner.”
“It’s a deal. I’ll go round up my crew,” said Powell as he got up.
Judge Welton Leshem was a man on a mission. From his earliest days, he had wanted to be Judge like his father, and his father before him and so on back for around ten generations. It was both a great honour and great burden to carry. As he was growing up, he had heard the tales, the legends, and the myths. He’d even heard the old tale of his grandfather who had simply vanished some years before he was born.
He’d never really thought too much about the missing relative, until he had become a Judge some twenty odd years earlier. Judges were rarely young, since they needed the temperament and restraint that only came with experience. And they were rarely required to perform any great physical tasks since that was what the local judiciary was for.
Shortly after becoming a Judge, he had looked up his grandfather and namesake and found very little information. There had been a detailed description of his career and the cases that he had worked on, but as to what had actually happened to him, almost nothing was to be read anywhere.
He’d been assigned the case of a simple break-in, which would not normally warrant the involvement of a Judge. However, in this case the location that was broken into was the main office of a very influential businessman and Ambassador. As a personal favour, the Governor of Moret had requested a Judge investigate the incident.
His grandfather had lodged a report that he’d been able to identify the perpetrator and had followed her to where she had fled. Unfortunately, the report had failed to mention where she had gone or where he was going.
It wasn’t until about a year later that he was officially declared missing. There was very little information to go on since the trail had gone cold. His movements were tracked all the way to his arrival on Belousov and his first few days there, but after that he’d stepped off the grid.
And that was where it had ended. For years the case niggled at the back of Welton’s mind, but there was nothing to do. Anyone who might have seen him would have died years earlier. There was plenty of data floating around or sitting in old archives but without points of reference, there was no way to find meaningful information on what had happened to him.
And then, a few weeks earlier a group of flags had gone up. Someone was fishing the data streams for information related to the last case and then came the big break – someone had had the temerity to hack into the secure data cores that the Judges used for their internal networks.
Now that Bamey had given him some solid intel, he could justify going personally to Belousov. He had dropped everything and jumped at this chance to locate the remains of his grandfather, and maybe close a case that had been open for almost a hundred years. Confidently, he strode out of the building and into the open pavilion, when something struck him on the head.
“Odeny yokel, what’s the big deal?” asked Tatiana.
“This is the big deal,” said Tyrell as he gestured to Box HBF-32146.
Tatiana looked at Tyrell, then looked at Higuel then looked back at Tyrell.
“Don’t stand there looking all dumb and innocent. You said that the Narjus would be in this box, and it clearly isn’t. There’s just a bunch of bits and pieces of a Ripshodder – not even enough to make one full working unit.”
Tatiana looked at Higuel again. “Is he serious?”
Higuel looked at Tyrell, then looked back at Tatiana uncomfortably. “Well, yes. The box is empty.”
“MORONS!” screamed Tatiana. “You’re both useless, incompetent imbeciles! I should never have gotten involved with you! You couldn’t sneak your way out of a ship with the airlock open.”
More than slightly taken aback, Higuel and Tyrell looked at each other as Tatiana continued her tirade.
“What the hell was I thinking when I got involved with you two! I’m going to have to start screening idiots since obviously just having a fat wad of cash isn’t enough to get you a decent education! I can’t believe I flew all the way out here from Moret. I should just slap you both but I’d be worried about getting stupid on my hands!”
“Where’s the Narjus!” demanded Tyrell.
Tatiana bent over the open box, ripped the inside of the lid off and pulled out a sealed satchel. She threw it into Tyrell’s chest with such force that he fell backwards onto one of the sofas.
“How much clearer does a message have to be? I said ‘it’s inside the box’ not ‘it’s in the box’. You want me to send you restricted information and you don’t expect it to be hidden from casual inspection? Aargh, how retarded do you have to be to expect the contraband to be sitting in the middle of the box where anyone who opens it would see it straight away!”
“How was I supposed to know?” cried Tyrell. “You said it would be inside the box and it wasn’t. We looked! How were we supposed to know that we had to tear the box to pieces first?”
“Tell me, you pathetic excuse for a criminal. When you send a shipment of Black Lace across national borders, do you list ‘illegal drugs’ on the manifest? When you send guns down to embargoed planets, do you write ‘do not open, live ammunition’ on the box?”
Tyrell and Higuel looked at each other sheepishly. “Um, sorry?”
“Sorry? Sorry! How about you pay me for my fare for the flight out here to show you lunkheads how to do your jobs! Would you like me to go down to the library and rent a book on How to be a Successful Criminal for you? And for the flight back while we’re at it.”
Tyrell sat up on the couch and opened the satchel. Inside was a square, clear data disc and a handful of printed sheets with some handwritten notes on them. “What’s this?”
“What, you want me to read it to you as well? Hey, I did my job. It’s up to you what you do with the information you bought. And speaking of payment, you still owe me for this flight.” Tatiana pulled a credit disc from her pocket and waved it at Tyrell.
Tyrell started reading the sheets and looked up. He gave a brief nod to Higuel who pulled out his credit disc and thumbed some money over to Tatiana’s. She inspected the result of the transaction, smiled in satisfaction and went to leave the room.
“Hey!” said Tyrell. “This says that this disc is an old Frinkahedron model. Those have been out of date since before I was born! Where the hell am I going to find a working one to read the data?”
Tatiana stopped at the door. “Oh for the love of – okay, tell you what. I know where there is a working Frinkahedron station that is not only active but it is also publicly accessible. I’ll sell you that information, for a hundred thousand.”
“A hundred thousand!” exclaimed Higuel. “That’s double of what we’ve paid you so far!”
“Or you could, you know – do a little research and find out where it is yourselves.” Said Tatiana with a playful smile on her face.
“No way lady, you’re out of your mind!” said Higuel.
“Pay her,” said Tyrell in a defeated tone.
“What? No way! For that kind of money we could hire a ship and go looking for a machine from planet to planet.”
“Whatever. I can afford it.”
Higuel fumed for a moment, looking back and forth between the sulking Tyrell and the smiling Tatiana.” Fine,” he said. Again, the two credit discs were pulled out and more money was transferred from one to the other.
“Oh wow,” exclaimed Tatiana as she saw her new balance.
“Okay miss, the information please,” said Tyrell.
“Okay. All you need to do is go to the Duck on Inn hotel, right here on Kuparinen. From the lobby, go down the stairs on the right hand side and you’ll find a few old data terminals that are on display in a little touch and see museum. All you need to do is put the disc in and you’ll be able to transfer the data to the device of your choice.”
Tyrell glared at Tatiana. “You are some piece of work lady.”
“No problem honey, it’s been a pleasure working with you. A deal’s a deal and you guys have been just swell. Oh, and if you missed any of that information I just gave you, give me a call. I’d be more than happy to write it down for you.”
With that, Tatiana walked out the door.
“Write it down?” Tyrell looked through the stack of sheets that he had in his hands. On the last page was written the exact same information that Tatiana had just said to them.
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