Curse of the Iris (18 page)

“Who should never talk to people,” Yana said.

The door to the sacristy opened, and the Hashoones hastily suspended their argument. Father Amoss shook his head.

“I'm afraid Loris isn't here. Perhaps later—”

“Do you know where he might be, Father?” Yana asked. “It's important that we speak with him as soon as possible.”

Amoss hesitated.

“One of the grog shops?” Yana asked.

Amoss nodded. “Probably the Devil's Den. It's on this level, past the—”

“Know the place,” Grigsby said.

“Of course,” Amoss said. “If not there, I'd try the Hidden Diamond, or perhaps the Last Airlock. I presume you know those too, Alcides?”

“Might've been round a time or two.”

“Please be kind to Loris,” Amoss said. “He's a good man who's had more than his share of misfortunes.”

“We mean him no harm, Father,” Tycho said.

“In fact, there might be some money in it for him,” Yana said.

“Money,” sighed Father Amoss. “There's so much of it on Callisto, dug out of the rock, and yet so little of it makes its way down here, to the people in the holes left behind.”

The Devil's Den was literally a hole in the wall of a gloomy, deserted corridor, which a hologram had turned into the mouth of a red-faced, pop-eyed demon, bordered by heaps of trash. Unlike at Port Town's other saloons, no raucous laughter, throbbing music, or squeals from interactive games leaked out from the door. The corridor was silent, and Tycho felt a prickle of unease as he followed Grigsby, Carlo, and Yana into the bar.

Inside, a few figures huddled in the dim chill. Behind the bar, a squat man was passing a dirty rag over cloudy glasses to no obvious effect.

“No kids,” he growled, looking up.

“They're with me,” Grigsby said, putting his big hands on the bar and leaning over it. Tattoos flared into life on the backs of his hands, ribbons of light disappearing up his sleeves.

“Grigsby,” the bartender squeaked, retreating until his back was against shelves of bottles. “What do you want?”

“I want Loris Unger,” Grigsby said.

“Outside,” the bartender said. “Passed out or dead, I don't care which.”

The heaps weren't trash after all, Tycho saw—they were men in ragged clothes, curled up for warmth. Grigsby squatted in front of one of them, shaking him by the shoulders until his eyes snapped open.

“Loris Unger?” he asked.

“N-no,” the man said, extending a shaky hand. “Over there.”

Another heap got to his feet and tried to stumble off down the corridor, but Grigsby grabbed him and turned him around. He was tall and thin, with short hair faded from red to gray and a few days' worth of beard. His eyes were glassy and watering.

“Loris?” asked Carlo, stepping forward to peer at his face.

The man nodded with a jerk.

“No need for rough stuff,” he gasped. “I'll be moving on now. J-just need to catch my breath.”

He coughed convulsively, face reddening as he hacked and strained. Carlo stepped back, looking disgusted.

“No rough stuff,” Yana said. “Loris, my name is Yana Hashoone.”

Loris looked at her in bafflement.

“Hashoone? Know that name.”

“I know you do. You're not in any trouble. We just want to talk to you.”

“A-about what?”

Yana looked at Carlo, who shook his head. “Not here, and not now,” he said.

Loris's head slumped forward; scowling, Grigsby put a tattooed arm around him.

“Carlo, it's all right,” Tycho said.

Grigsby looked from one brother to the other.

“I've served your family all my life,” he growled. “I know when to keep a matter dark.”

Yana looked around the corridor, then stepped closer to Loris, who struggled to lift his head. He blinked at her, wheezing.

“It's about your grandfather,” she said. “And the
Iris
.”

“O-ho,” Grigsby said with a wolfish grin.

Loris shook his head, then staggered against Grigsby, who struggled to keep him upright.

“Is there a canteen or a café around here?” Yana asked. “Someplace quiet?”

Grigsby nodded. “About five minutes' walk.”

He got Loris headed in the right direction, half leading him and half dragging him a few paces behind Carlo, Tycho, and Yana. At the canteen, it took three cups of coffee for Loris to be able to focus on Yana's questions.

“Oh, yes, my grandfather was a grand pirate—gallant and brave,” he said. “He and ol' Johannes Hashoone were friends, you know. Had many a caper together, took many a prize. But the
Iris
—that's an evil name, Miss Yana. You don't want to be mixed up with that trouble.”

“We're not mixed up with it, Loris,” Yana said soothingly, sipping a warm jump-pop. “The treasure's gone forever. We're just collecting stories that spacers used to tell about the
Iris
cache. You must have heard some great old legends, right?”

Tycho and Carlo exchanged a wary glance. This was the critical moment, when Loris might become suspicious or hostile. In which case all could be lost.

“Grandfather died years before I was born,” Loris said. “He was lost in space—along with our ship.”

Yana nodded. “I know, Loris. But maybe your father told you something? We have some money for you, if you talk to us.”

“Money?” Loris asked. “For stories?”

“For your time. We were talking about your father.”

Loris's eyes unfocused, and Tycho feared he'd slump over again. But then, after a brief coughing fit, he began to talk in a low, wistful tone.

“Daddy used to dream of the lost treasure. First it was his hobby, but then it became his obsession. Every place he worked, he'd hunt through the old manifests and flight logs and listen to the spacers' tales. But he never found a thing. And then the accident happened.”

Loris stared at the drab rock wall of the canteen, his lower lip quivering, and Tycho felt a surge of pity for the broken man.

“I'm sorry, Loris,” Yana said. “But do you remember any of the stories he told you? Like where he thought the treasure might have been?”

“Gone,” Loris said.

“I know it's gone. I mean before it disappeared.”

“There were so many stories,” Loris said. “All crazy. Fables and wild talk, Miss Yana. Starting with how the treasure had been stolen from us.”

“Stolen? By whom?”

“Daddy never told me.” Loris wheezed. “I don't even know if it was true. He couldn't accept what people kept telling him—that the treasure was gone forever, lost beneath Grandfather's home.”

Tycho leaned forward, biting his lip, then forced himself to wait.

“Your grandfather was from Europa, right?” Yana asked.

Loris had been coughing again, and Yana had to repeat the question. He nodded, one shaky hand rubbing at his eyes.

“Where did Josef live on Europa?” she asked.

“Southern end of the Sidon Flexus,” Loris said, bowing his head.

Yana grinned at Tycho and Carlo.

When Loris raised his head, his eyes were wild. “You let that treasure be, Miss Yana. You just let it be. It's cursed, they say, and I believe it. It ruined my father and my grandfather before him.”

“The treasure's gone, Loris—lost just like they told your father. We just want the stories, and we can't thank you enough for sharing them with us.” She dug in her carryall. “I've got a currency chip for you with one hundred livres on it. All I need is your signature on some papers.”

“What papers?” Loris asked foggily.

“Just a bunch of boring stuff for lawyers. They won't let me pay anybody the money unless they sign it first.”

Yana held out her mediapad to Loris, who stared uncomprehendingly at the blizzard of words on the screen.

“Here, Loris, let me just skip to the screen where you sign,” Yana said, then handed the mediapad back to the old miner, along with a stylus. Loris stared at the screen for a moment, then scrawled his name and pressed his fingertip onto the surface.

“Thank you, Loris,” Yana said, pressing the currency chip into his palm. Loris blinked at it for a moment, then stuffed it deep into the pocket of his soiled coverall and got to his feet.

“Do you want us to walk back to Saint Mary's with you, Mr. Unger?” Tycho asked.

Loris looked down at Tycho distractedly.

“No . . . no. Got some people to see.”

And with that he shuffled out of the canteen.

“Well,” said Yana, “one down, three to go.”

“And one grog hound headed straight back to the Devil's Den,” Carlo said.

That made Tycho stop smiling.

“Rarely seen a finer fleecing,” Grigsby said. “Your grandfather would be proud.”

“I'm not sure
I
am,” Tycho replied. “Loris doesn't have any money.”

“Sure he does,” Carlo said with a grin. “He has a hundred livres.”

“Which will last him what, a few days?” Tycho asked. “What happens to him after that?”

“I swear, Tyke, you are the worst pirate in history,” Yana said. “If we find the
Iris
cache, we'll send him a finder's fee, okay?”

“And what would be the point of that?” Carlo asked. “You saw what he is, what he's done to himself. If you gave that man a fortune, do you think it would cure him? He'd just use it to kill himself more quickly. We can't save the solar system, Tyke—that's a job way above our pay grade.”

“You're probably right,” Tycho said.

But his conscience continued to gnaw at him as they passed the Devil's Den and headed back to the elevators that would lift them out of Port Town's lower levels. When they passed Saint Mary's, he hesitated, then came to a halt.

“You go ahead. I'll catch up,” Tycho said. “I just want to tell Father Amoss we gave Loris his money. Maybe he can persuade him to make better use of it. I'll be fine—the elevator's just around the corner.”

“Don't go nowhere else, Master Tycho,” Grigsby said. “Particularly not back to the Devil's Den. Your brother's right—you can't fix what needs repairing in that man.”

“I won't, promise. I'll meet you at the landing field, okay? You wanted to visit the fruit sellers anyway.”

He found Father Amoss in his small office off the sacristy and told him about Loris and the money, though he left out what the man had told the Hashoones and the fact that Loris had signed his share of the Collective over to Yana.

Father Amoss sighed.

“It'll go where the rest of his money goes, unfortunately. He's sick, the poor soul.”

“I know,” Tycho said. He reached into his own coverall and found one of his own currency chips.

“Will you take this, Father?” he asked. “It's not much, maybe forty livres, but it's what I have. Will you use it to look after Loris?”

Father Amoss took the chip and patted Tycho's hand.

“I'd do that anyway,” he said. “But there's many more in Port Town who could use looking after, and this will help. Bless you, Tycho—you're a good lad.”

Tycho thanked him and left, and a minute later he was in the elevator, wondering if he was really the worst pirate in history or if he was really a good lad, and which was more important.

11
A PRINCELING OF GANYMEDE

T
ycho's gloom began to lift as the grav-sled bumped across the scarps and hills between Port Town and Darklands. Yana's delight at their early success proved hard to resist, and before they were halfway home, Carlo had joined them in discussing how to outmaneuver Lord Sicyon and Oshima Yakata. Tycho wasn't sure if their conversation with Loris had made Carlo less certain the treasure was gone or if Carlo was simply enjoying the hunt. Either way, it made for a more pleasant journey.

Plus there was the sight of open space above them, dotted with starships in orbit and dominated by the gigantic sphere of Jupiter. Tycho peered at the familiar gas giant through the radiation shield, tracing its bands of gray and tan, white and rust, forever being churned into whorls and swirls by the tumbling storm known as the Great Red Spot.

The poverty and hopelessness of Port Town had gnawed at Tycho, but more than that he'd hated feeling trapped beneath hundreds of meters of rock and ice. Out here, under the vast vault of space, he felt free again. By the time the Hashoones descended the spiral stairs of Darklands, he and Yana were whooping and yelling like conquerors bearing the spoils of war, and even Carlo was smiling.

To their disappointment, this commotion went unnoticed—unless you counted Parsons, who stood waiting for them outside the simulation room, head cocked in polite expectation.

“Where are Mom and Dad?” Yana asked.

“Your mother and father are in dry dock, running diagnostics on the
Shadow Comet
,” Parsons said in his slow baritone. “Your grandfather is in the crypt, and your aunt is in her office.”