Mapped Space 1: The Antaran Codex (14 page)

“I know where the law begins, where
it ends and all that lies beyond.”

I took that as a yes, giving Marie
a welcoming smile as she returned to her seat. While she refilled her wine glass,
I whispered to Bo, “Do we have a problem?”

“Not tonight. Tomorrow perhaps.”

I lifted my glass and toasted
him. “Until tomorrow then and . . . to caution.”

Bo inclined his head, returning
my toast with his cup of green tea, throwing me another piece of Confucian
wisdom, “Silence is a true friend who never betrays.”

“To silence,” I said, wondering
if I could make a deal with Bo as he seemed in no hurry to expose me.

At the end of the table, Mukul
Sarat tapped his wine glass several times for quiet, then said, “I’m pleased to
inform you that the Earth Bank auctioneer has validated all bids, making this an
extremely prosperous group.”

Everyone had their poker faces
on, revealing nothing, except for Gwandoya who appeared increasingly irritated
by the process. Clearly, he was used to taking what he wanted and killing anyone
in his way.

Sarat motioned to the polished
rock wall behind him, which dissolved into a blue screen. “The qualifying bids
will be displayed on this screen. If your name does not appear, you will not be
participating in the second round. The entire process is automated and
controlled by the Earth Bank auctioneer to the extent that even I do not know
the results.”

We all focused our attention on
the screen to see Arturo Vargis’ name appear first.

“Congratulations Senor,” Sarat
said, “Your bid was the highest.”

There was a round of polite congratulations
from everyone except Gwandoya. Vargis nodded curtly with no sign of surprise or
relief. From his demeanor, it was obvious he expected to win, and now he had
the tactical advantage of knowing the highest bid. A moment later, Bo
Qiang’s
name appeared on the screen.

“Congratulations Mr Bo,” Sarat
said, “your bid was the second highest.”

Again Gwandoya was the only bidder
not to acknowledge the qualifying bidder. Bo’s face was impassive, but for a
moment I saw a flicker of anger and surprise in his expression. He took a
breath, burying whatever had incensed him and accepted the congratulations
humbly. Bo then fell into a brooding silence, although he gave no hint as to
why.

When my name appeared next, Sarat
said, “Congratulations Captain Kade, your bid has qualified you for the second
round.”

“Way to go, Skipper!” Jase said
enthusiastically, holding up a glass of Sarat’s finest wine and throwing it
back in one gulp.

I acknowledged the other’s
congratulations, seeing the tension on the faces of the three contenders now
competing for the final place. Marie was worried while Breckinridge’s courteous
joviality was replaced by a nervous intensity. Gwandoya looked like he was
about to explode, making me glad that Sarat had disarmed him.

Finally, the last name appeared,
bringing a smile to Sarat’s lips. “Congratulations Mademoiselle Dulon, you are
the fourth bidder.”

Marie’s tension was instantly
replaced by a gracious smile. “Thank you.”

“At least you’ll be joining us
for breakfast,” I whispered.

“It’s a pity you won’t be here
for lunch,” she said through her smile.

Gwandoya stood up angrily, stared
at the screen with bulging eyes and a clenched jaw, then smashed his glass onto
the floor and stormed out.

“Not a good loser,” I said.

“Hopefully you will take your
defeat tomorrow in a better spirit,” Vargis said.

“I’m not a good loser either.”

“He really isn’t,” Marie said in
a confiding tone, “although he should be, because I beat him all the time.”

“I only let you win to give you a
false sense of security.”

“Sure you do,” Marie said
patronizingly.

Sarat turned to the mining
magnate. “Thank you, Mr Breckinridge, for coming all this way. I’m sorry it
hasn’t turned out better for you.”

Breckinridge shrugged. “Thank you
for the invitation.”

Sarat stood slowly. “That
concludes tonight’s proceedings. Breakfast will be at eight, bidding at ten. The
bar will remain open as late as you like.” Sarat excused himself and disappeared
down a corridor leaving us in the care of his humorless butler-guards.

“Open bar! My kind of place!” Jase
declared, motioning to one of the butler-guards to bring him another bottle.

Marie and I exchanged inquisitive
looks, then by mutual agreement – with the contest still in the balance –
decided not to retire to the same room.

“See you in the morning,” she
whispered to me in a way that promised another night, then she headed off down the
corridor to her apartment.

Jase took the fresh bottle from
the butler-guard, then we headed back to our room. He took a swig, then said in
a low voice, “For a moment there, Skipper, I thought I was sleeping in the
hall.”

“For a moment, you almost were.”

* * * *

An alarm shrieked out of the darkness,
snapping me instantly awake. Jase sat up on the sofa blinking in protest when I
switched on the lights. It was three AM and the warbling siren was coming from
outside our room. We dressed quickly and hurried towards the siren emanating
from the meeting hall. Several guards stood over Henry Breckinridge, lying in a
pool of blood in front of the Antaran Codex. His body had been neatly cut in
half through the chest.

“Oh man,” Jase said, wincing at
the gruesome sight.

Sarat rushed in wearing only a
robe, cursing under his breath when he saw Breckinridge’s bloody corpse. “Get
this cleaned up immediately!” He yelled at the guards.

Several of his men hurried off
down a corridor as Marie, Bo Qiang and Vargis arrived.

Sarat turned to us with an
apologetic look. “I didn’t expect anyone in this group to try to steal the Codex.”
He motioned to the flat metal disk upon which it sat. “There are no guards in
here for a reason. They’re not needed. As you can see, the Codex is well
protected.”

 
“You should have warned us,” Vargis snapped.
“Suppose I’d tried to examine it?”

“Then we would have one less
person to bid against,” Bo observed dryly.

“I told you it was shielded,”
Sarat said. “That should have been enough.”

If I’d lost the first round, that
would have been me lying on the floor in pieces instead of Breckinridge. I took
a closer look at what I’d assumed was simply a polished metal container used to
transport the Codex. My threading detected no thermal or electromagnetic
signature, yet it had generated enough energy to cut Breckinridge apart and to
do so without scarring the wall behind him.

 
“The base is alien-tech, isn’t it.” I said.
“Is it Irzaen?”

“They used this device to deliver
the Codex to me,” Sarat admitted.

“So it’s a vehicle and a weapon?”
I asked, surprised at the incredible miniaturization that had gone into the
transport device. We had no accurate information on how far ahead of us the
Irzaens were, but it was far enough to ensure my threaded senses couldn’t detect
 
their technology.

“It’s a secure means of transport
until the winning bid is decided,” Sarat said. “When we have concluded our
business, it will release the Codex and return to the Irzaens.”

“Why are they not here in
person?” Bo asked.

“They prefer to work through
intermediaries,” Sarat replied, “although I assume they have a ship in this
system.”

“Have you ever met them, face to
face?” Marie asked.

“We communicate via holograms.”

“Holograms are easily faked,” Vargis
snapped. “I demand we meet this Irzaen in person. I want to know who I’m
dealing with!”

Vargis might have been a
supercilious slime ball, but he knew a dodgy deal when he saw one. No wonder
the Chairman had sent him out here to represent the Consortium.

“That won’t be possible,” Sarat
said. “Their atmospheric requirements are somewhat different to ours, but let
me assure you, I’ve been dealing with them for more than two years and they’ve
never given me cause to doubt them. If you play by the Irzaen rules, there will
be no more surprises. The only reason Mr Breckinridge is dead is because he
tried to steal the Codex.”

I noticed we were short one other
member. “Where’s Gwandoya?”

“On his way back to the mainland,”
Sarat replied. “Once he was disqualified, he insisted on leaving immediately.”

“You should have kept him here until
the winner was safely off planet,” I said, certain Gwandoya would be waiting in
orbit for whoever won the Codex.

“I must agree with Captain Kade,”
Bo said. “It was unwise to allow Gwandoya to leave.”

“What’s the matter, gentlemen,” Vargis
said, “Afraid of a bunch of rag tag pirates?”

I wanted to say that not all of
us were flying battleships, but instead, refrained from letting Vargis know I’d
investigated his ship’s movements. “Some of us prefer to err on the side of
caution. Right Mr Bo?”

Bo Qiang nodded. “Indeed.”

The guards came and covered
Breckinridge’s body, then we started back to our respective apartments as the
clean up began.

When we were out of earshot, Marie
whispered to me and Jase. “Gwandoya’s not going to let the winner just fly away.”

“Maybe we should let Vargis win,”
Jase said, “So they kill each other.”

“Then we’ll split the salvage,” Marie
agreed.

“You can have the salvage,” I
said, “I want the Codex.”

* * * *

Early
next morning, I went up to the lookout at the top of the rock spire. It was a
low walled square cut into the spire’s apex with no protection from the icy
wind. A skeletal tower in one corner housed a communications relay and the
local weather station, while heating elements embedded in the rock prevented
ice forming on the floor. The lookout had panoramic views of the distant rock
spires spread in a line from the north west to the south east, and of the
endless white capped sea dotted with icebergs surrounding them.

I activated the small
communicator Izin had fitted with a powerful encryptor and, using my body to shield
it from the wind, said, “Izin, are you there?”

His response came through with
surprising clarity. “Yes, Captain. My hull crawler was unable to complete the
activities you requested. It was destroyed before it got within range of the
cutter.”

“If that ship takes off, track
it. We’ll need to know where it is when we leave.”

“It launched early this morning,
Captain. I lost contact with it when it moved to the far side of the planet.”

Gwandoya was clearly going to
make getting away from Icetop in one piece tricky. Perhaps he’d never intended
to win, just to know where and when the auction was to be held, so he could
pick off the winner. “Do you have access to our location?”

“No, Captain. The system defenses
there are extremely sophisticated.”

“I can’t win without help.” I’d
already bid three quarters of Lena’s EIS money and placed only third with two
rounds to go. With Vargis representing the Consortium, his pockets were sure to
be deeper than mine.

“You’ll need to give me access
from your side.”

The elevator door opened and two
of Sarat’s butler-guards emerged with assault weapons leveled at me. “Got to
go,” I said quickly, raising my hands in surrender.

One of the guards snatched the
communicator out of my hand. “No unauthorized communications!”

“Authorized by who?”

The guard ignored my question,
holding the communicator in front of my face. “Who were you talking to?”

“My ship. I was checking on how
our maintenance was proceeding.”

“Why was the signal encrypted?”

So they had been listening in,
even up here. “I use it to discuss commercially sensitive information. I have
this thing about nosy people with assault weapons knowing my business.”

The guard gave me a stare colder
than the wind tearing at my face. “Why wasn’t this communicator detected when
you arrived?”

“Your people scanned me, ask them.”
I neglected to mention the communicator had been sealed inside my left boot,
insulated from all but the most advanced detection equipment.

The guard pocketed the
communicator. “You’ll get it back when you leave. Do you have any other
communication devices?”

“Not that I can think of, but I
have a notoriously bad memory.”

Under other circumstances he
would have clubbed me with his weapon, but as I was Sarat’s guest, he
restrained his more brutal impulses. “Breakfast is in ten minutes,” the guard snapped,
then he and his companion returned to the elevator.