Curse of the Iris (5 page)

Tycho realized a figure sat huddled on the couch, a lined face peering out from a dark mass of robes.

“My mother,” Japhet Lumbaba said, thumbing the door shut behind them.

The woman struggled to her feet and bowed, then indicated they should sit on the couch. Carlo plopped himself down, discarding his helmet on the table in front of him. Yana and Tycho looked at each other, then settled themselves carefully beside their brother. Captain Lumbaba's widow shuffled over to the cabinet and returned with a tray and three small cups with steam curling above them.

“Thank you,” Yana said, sipping immediately. Tycho did the same. The tea was strong and bitter, but he managed not to grimace.

“Excellent,” he said with a smile. “Thank you, ma'am.”

“Is it coffee?” Carlo asked, hand poised above the tray.

“Tea,” Japhet said.

“I'm fine then,” Carlo said.

They waited for Mrs. Lumbaba to return and take a seat beside her son on one of the stools.

Carlo unfastened his carryall and extracted a small bundle wrapped in rough cloth. He turned to Lumbaba, who inclined his head toward his mother. Carlo got up awkwardly, the spacesuit hampering his movements, and held out the bundle to the old woman. She looked up at him for a moment, baffled, then slowly raised her arms.

“We thought you would want Captain Lumbaba's personal effects,” Carlo said, placing the bundle in her hands.

Mrs. Lumbaba stared at the bundle in her lap. A bump sounded from behind one of the closed doors. Tycho looked questioningly at Japhet.

“My grandmother,” he said. “She is not well.”

He leaned over and spoke softly to his mother, then gently opened the bundle for her, revealing a stack of his father's shirts. Sitting atop the stack was an ancient silver chronometer, engraved with the initials O.L.

Mrs. Lumbaba picked up the chronometer, her hand wavering. Then she shut her eyes and pressed the timepiece to her lips.

She was making a small sound, Tycho realized, as Japhet leaned in close.

“She is asking if he suffered,” Japhet said.

Carlo started to speak, but Tycho beat him to it.

“The air scrubbers failed, ma'am,” he said. “It would have been like falling asleep.”

The widow lowered the chronometer and nodded faintly.

“It was good of you to deliver these things,” Japhet said. “Are the flight logs from the
Lucia
among them?”

“Under salvage law, the logs are considered components of the ship,” Carlo said.

“I see,” Japhet said, his eyes hard.

Carlo turned to smile at Mrs. Lumbaba.

“Ma'am, your husband mostly searched for platinum, isn't that right?” he asked.

The widow opened her eyes and murmured something.

“What did she say?” Carlo asked, leaning forward eagerly.

Yana kicked Carlo in the ankle, but he only gave her a puzzled glance, then turned to find Japhet glaring at him.

“My father never spoke of such things with his family,” Japhet said. “You have kept the flight logs for yourself—find your own answers.”

“Forgive us, Mr. Lumbaba,” Tycho said. “We didn't mean—”

“My mother is tired,” Japhet said, getting to his feet. “Thank you for returning my father's things. I will take you back to the landing pad now.”

Carlo looked like he wanted to protest, but Yana and Tycho were already getting to their feet. He nodded glumly, gathered up his helmet and gloves, and joined his sister and Japhet at the door.

Tycho, though, stopped where Captain Lumbaba's widow sat slumped on her stool, cradling the chronometer. He lowered himself to one knee, and her hollowed eyes turned to meet his.

“I'm very sorry for your loss, ma'am,” Tycho said quietly. “I hope your husband is at peace.”

The widow Lumbaba nodded at him. Tycho stood and offered her a low bow. Japhet Lumbaba stood in the doorway, watching him.

They rode the elevator in silence, eyes fixed straight ahead. It wasn't until they reached the customs house that Japhet spoke.

“Master Hashoone,” he said.

All three siblings looked at him, but he was looking at Tycho.

“We have air scrubbers at Kraken Station too,” he said. “If they failed, I do not think it would be like falling asleep.”

“I'm afraid that's true,” Tycho said.

Japhet nodded.

“Thank you for not saying this,” he said. “Some truths are better not shared.”

Tycho started to reply, but before he could, someone shrieked and heads turned throughout the dome. He looked over Japhet's shoulder and saw a thin old woman in a baggy robe staggering through the crowd, one finger outthrust accusingly.

For a moment he thought it was the widow Lumbaba, but this woman was far older, and her eyes were wild and staring.

“Grandmother!” Japhet said, pushing through the curious onlookers.

“THIEVES!” screamed the old woman, spit flying from her mouth. “THIEVES AND MURDERERS!”

Her bony finger was pointing straight at them.

Japhet tried to calm the old woman, but she flailed at him with surprising strength, her fury still directed at the Hashoones. The Huygens-Cassini workers around were staring, as were the rough-looking spacers.

“My son spent his life searching for the secret of the
Iris
!” she screamed. “And when he found it, these filthy outsiders murdered him for it!”

“We need to go,” said Carlo, his voice low but urgent. “Head for the airlock. Do it
now
.”

Japhet dragged the old woman away, still screaming, as the Hashoones began to walk quickly in the other direction. Most of the people around them simply went back to what they'd been doing, shrugging or laughing. But Tycho saw a few curious glances lingering—and one of the bearded spacers with the wolf patch on his jumpsuit was speaking urgently into his headset.

His sister and brother saw it too.

“Are we running?” Yana asked, trying to extract her gloves from the bowl of her helmet.

“We're walking,” Carlo said. “But we're walking
fast
.”

They turned the corner and saw the inner door of the airlock open. Lights were flashing inside, illuminating a crowd of men and women in spacesuits. Sirens sounded, signaling that the lock was about to close.

“Never mind—we're running!” Carlo said.

They broke into an awkward trot, helmets clutched to their chests. Tycho heard someone yell. He pushed past a brawny refinery worker, who barked indignantly at him. They were ten meters from the lock when the sirens stopped.

“Go faster!” Carlo urged.

The gap between the airlock's heavy doors began to narrow. Carlo dashed inside, with Tycho right behind him. He turned and saw Yana still a couple of meters away.

“Yana!” yelled Tycho, looking for a way to stop the doors.

“Idiot kids,” grumbled someone behind them. “If I get docked for being late, it's coming out of your hides.”

Yana turned sideways and slipped through the closing doors, yanking her helmet in after her. The doors banged shut, and she shook her head, gasping.

“Helmets,” Carlo said, fitting his over his head and locking the collar. The airlock's venting mechanism began to hiss.

Tycho locked on his helmet and pulled on his left glove, fumbling with the seal. Wind tore at his right hand as the lock's pumps began sucking out the air. Yana struggled with her helmet, still panting. She had only one glove on.

The workers around them were yelling.

“Seal it up, you stupid dirtsiders! Seal it up!”

Tycho cinched his right glove shut. Yana looked frantically around the lock. Tycho saw her other glove lying on the deck. He dropped to his knees and handed the glove to her. The wind whipping past them began to subside as the pumps did their work.

“Tyke, we need to check seals,” Carlo said urgently, over the angry commotion around them. “If anything's open, we'll all burn.”

Tycho's instincts screamed to help his sister, but he knew Carlo was right. He forced himself to look at the readouts on Carlo's chest.

“You're green,” he said.

“So are you,” Carlo said.

They turned and found Yana fumbling with her wrist seal. Sweat was pouring down her face, and they could hear her breath thundering over their suit radios. The workers around them had backed away, but there wasn't enough room in the lock to protect them in case of an open seal, and their frightened gazes showed that they knew it.

The sirens began to blare again. Yana yanked at her wrist seal so hard Tycho feared she might tear it open. He forced himself to focus and examine the readout on the front of her suit.

“Yana,” he said, “stop. You're green. It's all right.”

Wind ruffled around them as hidden machinery pumped the nitrogen-rich atmosphere of Titan into the lock. The workers turned away, muttering in mingled anger and relief. A moment later, the outer doors split in the center, revealing the landing pad beneath a featureless orange sky.

“That was fun,” Yana gasped. “What was that crazy old woman so mad about?”

“Quiet,” Carlo said as the lock began to clear. “We're not safe yet—we need to get on the ship right now.”

“What's wrong?” Yana asked. “Nobody followed us—I was the last one in.”

“I'm not worried about who's back there,” Carlo said. “I'm worried about who's out here.”

They moved across the pad at a brisk walk, eyeing the spacesuited workers busy at various tasks. To their right stretched the broad expanse of the Kraken Mare. Undisturbed by wind or ripples, its surface formed a perfect mirror of the featureless sky. Glancing at it left Tycho momentarily confused between up and down, and he forced himself to look away.

“There's no point hurrying,” Yana said. “It'll take at least an hour to get a flight plan filed and approved.”

“We're making our own flight plan,” Carlo said. “If those guys don't stop us first.”

Tycho followed his brother's eyes and saw a pack of spacers emerging from a squat structure near the shore of the lake. They wore mismatched spacesuits—all of them decorated with the white wolf against the black background.

Yana, behind her brothers, couldn't see where Carlo was looking.

“What guys?” she asked. “We can't just blast out of here, you know. It's a big fine—”

“They can bill me,” Carlo said.

The lead spacer was pointing at them.

“Carlo—” Tycho warned.

“I see it! Run!”

They jogged for the gig, struggling in the bulky suits, breath booming in one another's ears. Carlo tapped out a command on his wrist control as he ran. The gig's gangplank began to descend.

“I'm flying,” he said as they rushed up the gangway. “Tyke, you handle the atmosphere exchange. Yana, sensors. Forget preflight.”

Tycho peered out the viewports as the gangplank sealed itself behind them. The spacers raced toward the siblings, carbines in their hands. Some came to a halt in front of the gig, while others ducked beneath it, out of sight. Something clanked against the hull.

“They're breaking in!” Yana warned.

“Not with hand tools, they're not,” Carlo said. “And they don't have time to burn through. Just get the atmosphere exchanged and strap yourselves in.”

“You realize they're all around us,” Tycho said.

Carlo grinned, the scar on his face flexing. “They'll move.”

He slammed a bank of levers into the upright position, and lights winked on across the pilot's console. A recording started to warn them about proper flight procedures. Carlo silenced it with a slap of his hand and pulled back on the control yokes. The engines whined, and the gig rose a meter above the landing pad.

“We are going to be in
so
much trouble,” Yana said. “Those aren't pirates out there, you know. They're port security, and—”

“I'm not sure there's much difference out here,” Carlo said. He whipped the gig's nose around in a full circle, and the spacers dodged, arms held protectively over their heads.

“We're at vacuum,” Tycho said. “Opening the air tanks.”

A rattle told them the gig's landing gear had retracted. Carlo nudged the gig forward on its maneuvering jets. Several spacers still stood ahead of them. One raised a carbine uncertainly, then lowered it in disgust, retreating as the whine of the gig's engines rose to a roar and Carlo pointed the craft's nose toward space.

“Don't cook anybody,” Tycho warned.

“Not my style,” Carlo said. The gig rose smoothly into the orange sky, and within a few seconds the landing pad was a tiny rectangle far below them.

A chime sounded on Tycho's board. “Atmospheric cycling complete,” he said, tugging off his helmet gratefully as his siblings did the same.

Yana swiped at the sweat on her forehead. “Now will somebody please tell me what happened back there? Starting with whatever that old woman was yelling about.”

“Right,” Tycho said. “She was talking about a secret. And Iris. What is that?”

“An old spacer's tale from our great-grandfather's day,” Carlo said. “And apparently it's what Captain Lumbaba was looking for. There's no platinum in the Hildas, but maybe there's something else.”

“What are you talking about?” Yana asked.

“A fortune,” Carlo said. “Waiting out there for somebody to claim it.”