Parker Interstellar Travels 4: The Trilisk Hunt Read online

  “Without big brother standing over my shoulder,” he said aloud.

  I wonder what that means?

  Chapter 2

  “Stand up and show me your hands,” said the humanoid police robot.

  Imanol stood up from his desk. A scowl lay across his unshaven face. Disheveled clothing hung on his strong but short frame. Chaotic curly hair added to the unkempt image.

  “You have the wrong place. Check your address,” he said. “I’m Imanol McCollum.”

  The police robot checked Imanol’s link identification, but it did not desist.

  “That’s no one-shot stunner,” said the cop’s voice again. The robot’s rifle came up a fraction as the operator noticed the weapon strapped across Imanol’s chest.

  “I said I’m Imanol McCollum,” Imanol said in irritation. “I’m a licensed security agent operating within—”

  “Identity confirmed. Though you are no longer licensed. Put your weapon on the desk.”

  Imanol’s face turned red in anger. His mouth compressed. “You’d better know what you’re doing.” He surrendered his weapon as ordered.

  “I’ll add your threat to the pending list of charges,” the robot emitted. Imanol stopped talking. A tracker was glued to his neck. His link was electronically isolated. Then the police robot stuffed him into a security vehicle and whisked him to the police station. Imanol knew the place. The building was squat and armored, a flat wart on the dark landscape of Bliss.

  Into the lair, Imanol thought. Am I supposed to be intimidated? They’re too afraid to come out except with their robotic proxies.

  Next was the wait. Though the arresting officer probably had little real work to do except down a big lunch, making Imanol wait was just a part of the routine. He had his link cache to play with while he waited, but of course it was boring without being able to connect to the outside world.

  Finally a real human appeared in the waiting room to speak with him. The man was older, his hair graying, and he carried extra weight. He had a heavily lined face that Imanol automatically attached hatred to.

  “So my license has been revoked? Why?” asked Imanol.

  “You dealt with the wrong crowd. A gang. You can’t expect to work with people like this and keep your license.”

  “What gang? You’re a buckle bulb.”

  The officer gave him a dirty look. He paused to access a document on his link. “Says here, Blue Comet something or other.”

  “That’s not a gang, that’s a frontier development company,” Imanol growled.

  “They’ve broken UN law; now they’re a terrorist gang,” the officer said. “Take this up with the bureau if you want. I’m just processing you. Close down your net storefront. You’re no longer licensed to operate as a security agent on Bliss. Give us a list of your last year’s active clients so we can inform them. If you cooperate from this point forward, I’m going to drop the weapons charge, given that you probably believed you still had authorization for it.”

  “Or given that your jail is already full of people who’ve broken your idiotic rules, and your budget has been cut in half because of the alien menace, and you’ve probably realized crossing me is a mistake,” Imanol ranted. He barely managed to stay seated. Though he could not avoid venting his anger, some part of him knew if he stood and began to physically move in on the officer, it would go badly.

  “Last chance,” the officer said levelly. “Cooperate now, or be incarcerated.” He watched Imanol to see which it was going to be.

  If his cells weren’t full, and his budget not cut, the arrogant bastard would have already thrown me in there just for mouthing off to him, Imanol thought. Nevertheless, some shred of intelligence crept back into his thinking. Time to cut his losses.

  “I’ll shut it down,” Imanol said as calmly as he could manage. Which was a very poor acting job, but the officer accepted it. He started to think on which clients he would report, and which ones he would leave out.

  I’m washed up here. The only place I’ll get work now is way out on the edge of the frontier. With people who care nothing about licenses.

  On his initial list, Imanol omitted the wealthiest clients. They might hire him again for high-paying jobs. At the last minute, he added two shady clients to the list. He had not done anything illegal for them, though he suspected those two were into black-market stuff. If they knew he was out with the police, it might actually help his chances with them.

  Even with fully automated systems to handle his incarceration and release from beginning to end, and Imanol’s cooperation, the bureaucracy moved at a crawl. It wasn’t until the next day that he was released to clean out his office.

  Imanol stopped to take a call from someone named Jason Yang.

  “Mr. McCollum,” Mr. Yang said. “I’d like to hire you. It’s a very special job, off the beaten path. I think you would find it very challenging. I’m prepared to pay your travel expenses in full to come out and consider us.”

  That was fast.

  “Who was the referral?” Imanol asked.

  I need to know who tipped these guys I was available.

  “A friend of a client in the force. Nick Vrolyk?”

  “Who?”

  “Nick Vrolyk. It would have been a while ago.”

  “That was a long time ago all right,” Imanol said. “Thank you for calling, but I’m not really interested in any opportunities back on Earth, Mr. Yang.”

  “This is quite the opposite,” Mr. Yang said. “Though my headquarters is on Earth, you’d be traveling farther out from the core worlds than you are now. The work, should you join us, is on the frontier as well. We’ll pay your expenses to come out and listen to us, with no obligation.”

  “Very well, send me the details,” Imanol said.

  At this point, what have I got to lose?

  Chapter 3

  Siobhan Cutter was in a good mood. A wicked smile started to form on the edges of her lips. A few strands of dark hair obscured one of her gleaming eyes.

  The sinuous young woman from Spero Five, an old but huge space habitat, was about to exact her revenge upon the company that had famously owned two generations of her ancestors, using their slave labor to maintain Spero’s vast space-based solar array.

  It was the main reason she had traveled here to Valomine. There was also healthy self-interest in mind, as her scheme would prove lucrative.

  An expert in industrial design, Siobhan had worked to put a backdoor into a factory control module installed for the new colony. Though not an employee of Speronautics Space Fabrication Corporation, she had been contracted as a frontier worker whose expertise could be drawn upon to get Valomine moving quickly.

  She walked down the factory floor, admiring the brand-new setup. The smell of virgin lubricant filled the vast room. Fabricators of all shapes and sizes littered the space. Belts and overhead hooks waited to bring the raw materials in for processing into countless parts. Then she heard her name called aloud.

  “Siobhan Cutter?”

  She peeked around a bank of equipment. It was a man, short, with ugly hair. He wore a courier’s uniform. Most everyone here seemed short to Siobhan, who had grown up in less than one Earth gravity.

  Siobhan had only a second to decide: duck and run away, or walk up and ask what he wanted? The man did not have weapons or even seem alert. So she walked up to him.

  “I’m Cutter. Why the shout-out? Your link not working?”

  “Oh. I’m used to this place being a dead zone. I guess everything is ready to go today, though, huh? Except you. You’ve been pulled.”

  “What? I’m still configuring things in the controller.”

  “Speronautics is doing it themselves now. All the local contractors are being let go. A couple dozen big company folks came in this morning on a UN transport.”

  “But that’s illegal?”

  “The council passed a close vote. Speronautics is allowed to bring in all their own now to set up the whole colony. The company pr
actically owns the planet under the new arrangement.”

  “Unbelievable! Doesn’t anyone remember Spero Five?”

  The guard shrugged. “No. Nobody remembers that crap anymore.”

  Siobhan almost struck the man down. But if she had succeeded, all she would get out of it would be a detail of security robots hunting her down and then a stunner or a glue grenade. Suddenly she got very sad.

  “Okay, I’m out of here,” she said, turning away.

  She checked a news feed and caught herself up on the new law. She had been so busy with her plot she had not seen it coming. She thought Speronautics had no choice but to use local workers, at least until it got itself good and settled in. But now, their own teams were coming in to do everything—on core government transports, even! The UN was rotten to the core. It had all been arranged by using the alien menace for an excuse. Speronautics was a big part of the space fleet buildup. Freelancers like her would have to flee the system or risk getting stuck on a world owned by the corporation. There were still limits on what they could do, in theory, but she was not about to rely on them. Her ancestors had made that mistake and paid dearly for it.

  “Frackjammers!” Siobhan snapped in annoyance.

  It’s happening all over again. The stupid UN is in bed with Speronautics. The people of Valomine are going to be slaves to Speronautics just as my great grandparents were on Spero Five.

  Her plan had almost worked. With her back door to the controllers in place, she would have been able to walk into any factory on Valomine and set it to making whatever design she fed into it.

  The damage she could have caused Speronautics would have been incalculable. But it had all come to ruin. “Because Speronautics owns too many UN parasites,” Siobhan growled. The new law would block her out.

  But it’s worse than just that.

  Siobhan realized the Speronautics engineers would give everything the once-over before starting up the factories. They might even have an AI to help them check it all out. If they found her back door, she would be on a list no one wanted to be on. Now she had to leave the planet fast.

  What contacts do I have? Precious few.

  Siobhan remembered she had received an intriguing job offer the other day. What was it? Parker Interstellar Travels.

  She found the contact. A man named Jason Yang. As she worked, her link delivered a message.

  “Miss Cutter, please report to the factory office.”

  Dammit!

  Siobhan opened a connection to the contact for the job. An Asian man answered the call. She caught his image from the visual partition of their channel. He looked young and handsome.

  “Miss Cutter, I’m glad you—”

  “You still have that job offer waiting for me?”

  “Well, yes, Miss Cutter,” he said. “We—”

  “Get me off this planet, and I’ll come in to see you,” Siobhan said. “The sooner the better,” she added.

  “I’ll see what I can do, Miss Cutter.”

  “I’m headed for the spaceport now,” she said. “I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  “Oh? You meant very soon indeed.”

  “You want me to come hear your offer? Find me something fast. Don’t attract much attention.”

  If this guy works with frontier types, he won’t find that request unusual. Otherwise…

  “I’ll try, Miss Cutter.”

  Siobhan’s mind worked with crystal clarity in her moment of pressure.

  They haven’t sounded a general alert because they don’t want to alert me, so only security knows I’m wanted.

  Siobhan pulled her link from the net and looked for another worker on the floor. She navigated around several banks of heavy equipment until she caught sight of a man between the rows of machines.

  The man stared at a large fabricator before him. She thought he might be a design mechanic or an inspector. Someone who was probably checking out the hardware before it got turned up. Siobhan wondered if he was local who had not been let go yet, or a Speronautics man. She looked at his simple clothing.

  A local. Any Spero jerk would have a special uniform on.

  Siobhan walked around the corner of the machinery and sauntered up to him.

  “My link can’t get through,” she said, smiling at the man. “The factory floor channels are glitching again.”

  “Mine’s up,” he said uncertainly. The look on his face showed he couldn’t detect her link.

  “Would you let me out this side door, then? I want to go up to the office and see what’s wrong.”

  The man frowned. “Sure, I guess letting someone out isn’t a security issue,” he said.

  “Ha, yes. It’s not like letting the wrong person in!” Siobhan agreed enthusiastically. They walked over to the edge of the vast floor and found a door. The man activated it, allowing her an exit.

  “Thanks so much,” Siobhan said, and she meant it.

  “Sure,” she heard him say behind her as she dashed away.

  Siobhan looked around outside. She noted the tall metal link fence around the property. Piles of red flakes had formed against it in places, a by-product of the local life form, the hashes. Hashes were fat insect-like creatures that derived their sustenance from the local star. They molted often, resulting in two flat flakes of skin, one for the top of their body and another for the bottom. The surface of the planet was littered with the molted skins. It was like dead leaf cover on Earth.

  Climb the fence? Or try that gate?

  She did not have time to decide before a man in a Speronautics uniform came jogging out of a gate office ahead to meet her at the perimeter.

  “Miss Cutter, stop right there, please,” the Speronautics man ordered as he approached.

  “Aw, you caught me,” Siobhan said in a high dainty voice. The man walked up to her. She raised her hands and then front kicked the man under the chin with one of her long, graceful legs. He collapsed, his limbs flopping randomly.

  Ouch. I don’t think his foot folded in the right direction.

  She looked at the fence. There were no insulators on the bottom supports, but the top foot of the metal chain links glistened in the light.

  Contact paralytic. Great.

  She ran up to the gate office. The door was still open, but the fence gate was closed. No doubt Siobhan would not be able to open it. She looked around, starting to feel trapped. A humanoid robot moved into the office from the other side.

  Dammit!

  She started, but the machine said nothing to her. It started to clean the office. Siobhan let out a sigh of relief, but her heart rate remained elevated.

  Then she saw a maintenance worker’s gloves. She grabbed the gloves and donned them. Then she attacked the fence. It was hard going, especially for a girl who had grown up in less gravity.

  Dammit! I’m just too heavy here. I hate this planet.

  She dropped to the ground, panting.

  “Stop there!” called someone.

  Siobhan did not look to see who it was. She turned the other way and ran toward a piece of equipment across the factory yard. A huge catapult, by the looks of it. She remembered something about a fissure over the wall.

  The junk catapult. A fun diversion for the engineers.

  The machine shot loads of trash over the rise just beyond the fence, into a deep fissure. Siobhan remembered the arc taken by the trash barely cleared the rise. The engineers loved watching the refuse clear the rise by a meter.

  Those loads of trash must weigh less than me… I would fall short of the fissure, up on the slope.

  Siobhan sprinted for it. She felt the familiar rise of a pleasurable adrenal rush.

  Hell yeah. I’m going for it…

  “Stop! What are you doing? There’s nowhere…”

  Siobhan slammed against the side of the launching machine and climbed up. The launch point was about three meters off the ground. At the top, she hopped onto the launching platform. Her link gave her its services. Being an oversized toy bui
lt by the engineers in their spare time, there were no authorization checks. She told it to launch.

  Ratchakachaka Whump!

  The acceleration was intense. It threw her off more than she anticipated, squeezing the breath from her lungs. But Siobhan had done a lot of daredevil sporting, including some extreme bungee jumping, skydiving, and even space vaulting. She gathered herself. She acquired a roll relative to the ground, causing the ground to rotate in and out of view. She had experience orienting herself while tumbling… in space.

  Siobhan opened from a ball, trying to increase her drag.

  Rising… rising… the hill grew larger.

  Then she caught a glance at the top of her arc. Well short of the fissure. She would hit the top of the rise. She remembered the gravity here was considerably more than last time she had taken a long-distance vault.

  Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea… but I’m close to apogee and my lateral speed is dropping...

  Siobhan formed herself into a ball again. She impacted near the top of the gravelly rise. As she had just passed zenith, she didn’t come down very hard, but she rolled forward with surprising speed. She slid across the gravel-littered surface of the top of the rise then started to descend… toward the fissure.

  No!

  Siobhan left her ball and flung her limbs outward. She feared breaking something, but she could not allow herself to slide too far. She felt the angle changing.

  One of her hands caught a rock and tore some skin. She heard the deep rip of connective tissue. Then she lost her hold and started to slide down.

  “Noooooooooo!”

  Her arms and legs scrabbled against the dirt. She noticed hundreds of the reddish hash flakes sliding with her.

  This is it.

  Siobhan gained speed. She tried to face her feet downward, but she did not have the purchase or resolve. Panic was taking hold.