Pelquin's Comet (6 page)

Drake hadn’t anticipated a new assignment quite so quickly and could really have done without this one. It felt as if he’d only been back from the last trip a matter of days. Oh, he knew that in reality it was longer than that, but readjusting to life dirtside after a protracted period in space took time. He’d barely begun to pick up the threads of his life on New Sparta and here he was heading out to God only knew where again.

He was almost tempted to seek a quiet word with Terry Reese, to ask if she might consider someone else for this particular venture. Of course, he wouldn’t actually do so. He was too conscientious, and too aware that such reluctance might cause Reese to hesitate when considering him for future jobs. Representatives were paid a decent enough basic salary but they were also in line for commission based on a percentage of anything brought back from an expedition, and that was where the real money could be earned. Assuming assignments were successful, of course, as his invariably were – a situation he didn’t intend to see change. Also, despite his misgivings and a deep-seated weariness, he relished a challenge.

Drake did his best to ignore his unlooked for reputation but he wasn’t ignorant of it. He was aware of the statistics, knew that he had a significantly greater hit rate than any other bank representative, but he refused to believe the hype. It was all down to blind luck. Surely anyone with a modicum of good sense could see that. How could it be anything other than pure coincidence? He didn’t get to pick his own assignments but simply went wherever First Solar sent him, as all his colleagues did. It was true, though, that success had a knack of breeding success. Because he’d gained a rep for being lucky, he tended to be top of the list for the juiciest, most promising assignments; particularly if Terry Reese was involved. She seemed to view Drake as something of a personal prodigy, which he supposed he was, in a sense. After all, he owed his position with First Solar to her. If Reese hadn’t spotted something in him and been willing to take a chance when he first approached her for a job… But she had, and he hadn’t let her down.

As Drake crossed the mottled marble floor of First Solar’s deliberately imposing foyer, his reveries were interrupted by a greeting.

“Drake?”

He looked up to see Archer, a fellow representative, coming towards him. Tall, blond, athletically built, and reputed to be equally sharp in both mind and dress sense, Archer was one of the rising stars of the department.

He also possessed a glaringly broad ambitious streak, which Drake simultaneously admired and was wary of. On the rare occasions they’d met, Drake had the impression that Archer’s ready smile was disingenuous and that the younger man’s true self lurked some distance back from the ever pleasant façade, observing and calculating; even as Drake tended to do. Perhaps that was why Archer unsettled him: the man reminded him too much of himself.

“Hear you’ve been assigned to a potential big one,” the other man said cheerfully.

Word
did
travel fast. “I’m not so sure about that. It’s another trip on another rust bucket chasing wild geese. I’ll only find out what’s waiting at the far end when I get there. You know what it’s like; every pitch ever made to an assessor is for a ‘big one’.”

Archer laughed, as if they were the most intimate of friends and he was fully relaxed in Drake’s company. “That’s true. Can’t say I’ve ever heard of an applicant seeking funds for an expedition to uncover a paltry cache of insignificant baubles.”

“Quite.”

“Well, best of luck in any case. I mustn’t keep Those Upstairs waiting.” With a final smile, Archer continued on into the building.

Drake stepped from the comparative tranquillity and subdued lighting of the head office’s interior into the full-on glare and bustle of New Sparta’s day, reviewing the conversation. The bank’s field representatives spent so much time off world that casual meetings like this were rare. He didn’t know Archer well, but then he didn’t need to. Any fool could see that the man’s good wishes had been hollow. Archer clearly begrudged Drake this new assignment, but why? Drake suspected this apparently chance encounter had a significance that escaped him at present and wouldn’t become clear until he could define its context more effectively. Refusing to waste time on pointless speculation, he dismissed the incident from his thoughts.

After wending his way across a busy landing field Drake finally reached the designated berth, where a ship waited as promised: a squat silver beetle of a craft built around a bloated fuselage designed to provide maximum cargo space. The front of the ship tapered to a narrower prow where the living quarters and guidance systems were housed. That tapering and the stubby fins projecting to either side and ventrally at the rear of the craft were the only structural concessions to aerodynamics; as if to testify that here was a vessel that plied its trade far from any world’s atmosphere and dipped down to grace the planet-bound only when strictly necessary.

Much of the ship’s broad backside below the thrusters and exhaust vents was taken up by the cargo hatch, which currently gaped wide: the main door doubling as a loading ramp. A couple of the ship’s crew were on hand – a man and a woman – though neither had noticed his arrival.

“Compact Tectonic Detector,” the woman declared.

“Complete and Total Destruction,” the man countered instantly, as if this were a competition being run against the clock.

“Controlled Thermonuclear Device,” the woman said almost as quickly.

The two figures were hunched over a large silver metal case which stood at the foot of the loading ramp. Drake could see very little of the woman, who had her back to him, though her hair was a tumble of black-brown curls pulled back haphazardly and kept in place by a band. The angle might have hidden her figure but not her frame, which was broad and well-muscled, dwarfing that of the man beside her. A gangly individual with sallow complexion and a mop of ginger brown hair, the man wore dark blue work overalls belted at the waist, while his face was dominated by a prominent roman nose.

No question, this was the right ship, though the realisation filled Drake with little joy. He was back at the spaceport, amidst the clamour and the shouting, the whir of machines and the groan of metal and the dust and the colour and the chaos, as incoming cargoes were unloaded and outgoing ones delivered and brought aboard. No departures were scheduled for this section of the field until late that afternoon, so activity on the landing pads was hectic and constant. People and machines moved around each other in a stage-managed melee, to the accompaniment of shouted instruction and the warning beeps of large vehicles on the move. Drake knew that proceedings were far better coordinated than they appeared to the naked eye, but from his perspective the whole thing looked chaotic.

To reach the appropriate berth he had been forced to sidestep a long cargo train laden with assorted goods, detour around a particularly large crate that stretched across the width of the thoroughfare, and quickstep from behind a reversing lifter whose driver was clearly oblivious to his presence.

For a moment his attention strayed beyond the two crewmembers to the craft itself: an old comet class trading ship. It brought back a whole welter of memories that, given a choice, he would have preferred not to revisit.

Still, this was what they paid him for.

“Constant Tongue Dicking,” said the man.

The woman punched him on the arm with something more than playful force. “Arsebrain!”

“Ow! What was that for?”

“Is there anything anywhere that you
can’t
turn into something smutty?”

Drake could see the woman a little more clearly now, if only in profile; broad features on a face that he’d describe as pleasant rather than beautiful, dominated by dark brown eyes and full lips.

“I hope not,” the man said, “I’ve got my reputation to think about.”

“Central Transport Data,” the woman said.

“Is that the best you can come up with? I give you tongue dicking and you give me transport?”

“In your dreams. There’s no way that you giving me any sort of dicking and me still breathing are ever gonna happen in the same universe.”

“Is that so? Sounds to me as if the lady protests too much…”

“Don’t push it, Monkey.”

This seemed an appropriate time to interrupt. Drake cleared his throat and announced in a clear voice, “Corbin Thadeus Drake.”

The man jumped as if startled, looking up as if noticing the banker for the first time; his pale blue eyes wide. “Who the fuck are you?”

“He just told you, Arsebrain,” the woman supplied.

“Stop calling me that!”

“I represent First Solar Bank,” Drake continued. “I believe you’re expecting me.”

The woman also straightened, stepping away from the silver trunk to reveal the letters CTD clearly embossed on its metal lid.

She examined him, a stare that fell short of hostile but was equally distant from welcoming. “I think, my friend, that you’ve come to the wrong ship,” she said. “We don’t do passengers here on the
Comet
.”

He recognised these two from their infofiles, but dry facts and snippets of tri-D recordings were poor substitute for meeting the real thing. The woman was Brenda Jayne Bearman, youngest of three siblings; father dead, mother remarried and no longer in contact; brother and sister both gainfully employed. Brenda, the black sheep of the family, had been in and out of trouble throughout her teens before she was eventually conscripted into the army. A reluctant recruit, she had subsequently thrived in the military environment, serving with distinction during the Macinairy Campaign, which had provided a coda to the Auganics War; a flexing of military muscle that finally quashed the lingering discontent left over from that bitter conflict which had threatened to tear the coalition of worlds apart.

Since her discharge, Brenda had lived at the fringes of society, spending a couple of years drifting from place to place and picking up odd jobs in security or as temporary crew before settling – for reasons the files failed to explain – as a crewmember aboard a freelance trade ship currently registered as
Pelquin’s Comet
.

The profile of the man beside her, Malcolm ‘Monkey’ Palmer, was a little more straight forward. Palmer had enjoyed limited formal education but had gained a wealth of experience souping-up engines for illicit street races and getaways, a pastime which saw him graduate from bikes to cars to ships. A dozen Malcolm Palmers could be found hanging around the bars of almost any spaceport, but Brenda Bearmans were a little harder to come by. Bearman was dressed casually in military-style fatigues with cut-away arms, worn tight enough to both display her biceps and accentuate a well-toned figure. He caught a whiff of perfume and she wore makeup, subtly applied. Here was a woman who had taken considerable care with her appearance but didn’t want to be obvious about it, which led him to conclude that there was somebody on board she was keen to impress. Not Monkey Palmer, that much was obvious.

“Today we’re making an exception,” a new voice declared. The instantly recognisable form of Thomas Pelquin stood at the top of the ramp. Drake noted the fleeting look in Bearman’s eyes as she first saw the ship’s owner and captain. Ah, so
this
was who all the effort was for. He wondered if the man even realised that a member of his crew had the hots for him. “Welcome to the
Comet
, Mr Drake,” Pelquin said, evidently oblivious. “Bren, Monkey, bring our guest’s luggage aboard.”

For a second it looked as if Bearman would challenge the order, but then she shrugged and moved to pick up the trunk, offering Drake a curious stare as she did so. Monkey slouched across to help, muttering, “Thought I was supposed to be the mechanic around here, not the friggin’ porter.”

Drake went to follow them into the ship, at which point Mudball chose to put in an appearance, poking his head up from the papoose-like pouch that supported him.

Pelquin, who still stood at the top of the ramp and was now no more than a dozen paces away, froze and stabbed a finger towards the furry face as soon as it peered from behind Drake’s shoulder. “What the hell is
that
?”

“Just my genpet,” Drake replied, the familiar lie tripping freely from his tongue.

“Nobody said anything about any
genpet
.” Pelquin made the last sound like a swear word.

“I don’t suppose anyone saw the need. Mudball goes everywhere with me.”

“Not aboard the
Comet
it doesn’t.”

Bren and Monkey had stopped halfway up the ramp and were watching the exchange with interest. Drake felt the grip on his cane grow firmer, matching the tightness of his smile. “This is your ship and of course it’s your choice, Captain Pelquin. But without Mudball, I don’t come aboard. Without me on board, you don’t go anywhere.”

Their gazes locked. Drake could sense the man’s anger, but he also knew that he had the upper hand – one which rested firmly on the purse strings. The
Comet
wasn’t ready to leave yet, and Drake could freeze the flow of funds in an instant. Excerting his authority this early wasn’t something he would have chosen to do, especially not in front of the crew, but Pelquin hadn’t given him much option.

“Ah, come on, Pel,” Brenda Bearman said, surprising the banker. “I think Mudball is kind of sweet,”

Her words broke the tension. Pelquin’s gaze flickered between the woman and Drake. He drew a deep breath, as if sucking in air might somehow cool his temper. “All right, but that damned thing is confined to your quarters at all times. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly.”

“If I catch a glimpse of its hairy hide anywhere else during the course of the trip it goes straight out the airlock.”

I’ll kick
his
ugly face straight out the airlock if he says much more,
Mudball’s affronted voice muttered in Drake’s head.

Behave yourself.
“You won’t even know he’s on board,” he assured Pelquin.
Will he!