Vyyda Book 1: The Haver Problem (16 page)

“They needed protection from the Rollos.”  Vardon spoke the words with such calm that if Dorsey didn’t know better, he might assume that Dole Vardon had been tasked to do so by Sklar himself.

“Vardon, deadly pel
lets in the hands of students – unsupervised students.  Flurry dispensers that don’t belong to you.  None of this strikes you as the least bit problematic?”

“Not particularly.  Nobody would give
me permission to be down here – especially now that I’ve been expelled from the school.”

“Vardon…” Dorsey began, not sure what to say.  He’d never met anyone whose thought process di
ffered so radically from the norm.

“You know that the canisters aren’t dangerous, don’t you?” Vardon said, breaking the silence.  “Disarmed.  They can’t dispense any pellets.  You couldn’t get them open by force no matter how hard you tried.  And
the pellets are inert.  The most they'd do is give a severe headache.  But that wouldn’t happen since you can’t get to the pellets.  I wouldn’t do anything to endanger anybody here.  Not my way.  I respect human life.”

“That isn’t the conclusion I would have reached, persona
lly.  And what were the pills – the “immunity pills” you provided?”

“Salt tablets
.  Nobody wanted flurry dispensers if it might do damage to them, so I --”

“Understood.” 

Dorsey gestured Vardon to follow him toward the nearest lift which would take them to the promenade level and a speedy return to Vardon’s confinement space.  Then, it suddenly dawned on Dorsey to ask:

“How the hell did you get out of the locked room they had you in?”

Vardon’s avoided looking at Dorsey.  “I’d rather not say if it’s all the same to you.”

“It’s not all the same to me.  How did you get out?”

The lift arrived.  Vardon stepped aboard, Dorsey right behind, still awaiting an answer to his query.  Vardon finally shrugged:  “I have to respectfully decline to answer.”

Once off the lift, they began crossing the
nearly empty promenade.

“I can take it from here, professor.” Vardon suggested.

“You can take it from here?  To where?  Another storage pod to sell whatever you find there?”

“Nobody was using those flurry dispensers.  Nobody
could
use them.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but they were all scheduled to be disposed of, right?”

Dorsey glanced at the young man who always seemed to be making a case for his particular brand of logic.  “But what gave you the idea that they should
be sold rather than given away?”

Vardon turned his palms upward, as if the point were so simple.  “Do you think any of the students would’ve believed those canisters were worth a thing if I
gave
them away?  It’s like those Drallmanian charms sold all over the place – cheap, glittery stones in a flimsy setting.  People pay for them because they want to believe in good luck.  If anybody charged what they were really worth, even twice that amount, everyone would figure the things were just junk.”

“Lesson learned:  It’s good to overcharge for junk.  You’re a born broker, Vardon.”

Vardon stopped, intent on making his point.  Dorsey slowed, looking impatiently back at the young man.

“People buy those charms and get peace of mind.  They believe they have luck on their side.  If thos
e students buy a dispenser at a high price, hang it on their door and get a good night’s sleep, what’s wrong with that?”

To hear
Vardon tell it, humanity was lucky to have him and others of his ilk. 

“And why does the money go to you?”  Dorsey asked, motioning for Vardon to continue the walk back to his holding room.

“Because I thought of it.”  That was it.  Vardon delivered the explanation without a hint of insincerity or coy bullshit.  He firmly believed in his right to the proceeds from selling worthless flurry dispensers – as unassailable as his right to breathe the air around him.

Noticing a security man in the distance, Dorsey signaled him and pointed at Vardon.  Vardon stopped once more.

“Wait,” the young man said, seeming to show concern for the first time, “What about the currency I collected?”

“What about it?”

“Are you going to force me to turn it over?”

Dorsey rubbed his temples, more than ready to be rid of Dole Vardon.

“Consider your profit a departing gift from me.”

With that, Vardon was turned over to the security man.  Dorsey reversed direction, headed for his own quarters.  He cursed under his breath, unenthusiastic about the standard provisions awaiting him for the lockdown.  Wasn’t it a shame that he couldn’t sustain a low-maintenance conscience like Dole Vardon?

Dorsey leaned on the railing that looked down on the landing platform where the Rollos’ transports would soon arrive and unload.  Sykes’ answer for a security force sat in a circle in one corner of the landing bay, forty meters below Dorsey:  eight men speaking quietly among themselves, clearly edgy about what lay ahead.

             
There was no reason to think they’d have to step in and actually engage one or more of the transient laborers.  The Rollos came with their own guards – strong-arms with a sadistic streak.  In fact, if it weren’t for the bright orange coveralls and unkempt appearance, it might be difficult to tell guards from prisoners in the traveling troupe of brutes and bullies.

             
The Sykes security men still had no interest in being around for the transfer from vessels to lockdown (and back again when departure time rolled around), but Pietro Sklar insisted.  “Just in case,” he had said, as if his men were any match for the burly, nothing-to-lose band of unskilled laborers.

While Dorsey sympathized with the security contingent, their task wasn’t all that bad.  The arrival of Rollos was one of the few times that they actually had to put in serious work time.  The Sykes population was almost always compliant.  The security team spent most hours being a relatively unnecessary redundancy. 

              Just as he pushed away from the railing, ready to return to his quarters, Dorsey spotted an unusual sight:  a single, moderately-sized, sleek vessel positioned a mere twenty meters from one of the departure chutes, seemingly poised for a quick getaway.  Moreover, there were no markings on the thing.  Not uncommon in U-Space – that is, when the owner of a craft preferred not to be easily associated with a group or haska.

             
The entire Sykes “fleet” (four aging transports) had been stacked in the far inside recesses of the landing bay to make room for the Rollo transports.  The distinction between Sykes’ clumsy-looking excuse for transportation and the sophisticated new arrival on the platform was beyond striking.  Dorsey had never seen its like before (and he’d encountered a diverse range of vessels in his post-Hyland years).  It bordered on being a work of art, this mysterious craft.

             
No way, Dorsey reasoned, that the remarkable piece of machinery was there to cart off the delinquent Dole Vardon.  It was far too pure in form to be mistaken for a low-end transport (which is all Sykes would pay for to rid itself of its newest former student).  Nor could it have anything to do with the Rollos.  Their vessels were every bit as ragged in appearance as Sykes’.

             
When the initial infatuation with the seductive craft wore off, Dorsey’s sense of preservation kicked in and a quiet panic arose within him.  If it wasn’t there to collect Vardon and had nothing to do with the Rollos, why was it sitting on Sykes’ platform?  He began to run, rapidly as he could, through the “sins” he’d committed on his path from Hyland to Sykes.  Nothing truly horrible came to mind…other than his escape from Lilligee and Dirty Water two years earlier.  Was it horrible enough in the minds of Dirty Water to actually do something about it?

             
The first inclination was to scurry away.  But where?  Dorsey only had his rooms as a reliable spot to which he had unfettered access.  That’s the very first place he’d be tracked down.  Still, it would give him a head start.  Just as he turned away the landing platform, his arm was taken firmly in hand.

             
It was Spackle. 

"Visitor waiting for you in Director Sklar's office."

"Who is it?"

Spackle shrugged.  Dorsey caught sight of Tomas Witt near the edge of the promenade, looking his way.  The older man offered a wave, nothing more.

"They need you in there right away," Spackle said.  He still had a hold of Dorsey's arm, pushing toward the administrative wing which overlooked the landing platform.  Dorsey ripped his arm away, glaring down at the shorter man

             
"By the way," Spackle announced, patting Dorsey on the shoulder, "you were right.  You weren't overdrawn at Flood's.  It was Tomas Witt.  He piled up all kinds of charges under your name.  What do you think of that?"

             
Dorsey looked at Spackle who had his typical unctuous smirk.

             
"I think you're difficult to believe."

             
"Go to Flood's after the Rollos are stashed. Find out for yourself.  You’re clear there.  Not quite a good friend, is he?"

             
Dorsey glanced back to where Witt had been moments earlier.  No sign of him now.

V              V              V              V

              Once Dorsey reached the door of Sklar's office, he paused, took a deep breath and entered.  What awaited him didn’t come close to resembling any of the dozens of anxiety-ridden predictions that had flashed through his mind since spotting the unique vessel on the landing platform.

             
It was a woman; small in stature, with a serious expression that seemed the product of long, intense practice.  She was dressed in a non-descript, deep gray outfit which, like the unmarked craft, offered no hint as to her associations or origin.  Yet what stood out the most – the thing which caused Dorsey to look carefully before being sure of the gender – was the nearly bald pate, a very tight fringe of absolutely white hair atop her head.

             
Sklar, who Dorsey hadn’t even noticed standing on the opposite side of the room, spoke:

             
“This is Dorsey Jefferson,” he said to the woman.  “I’ll let the two of you speak.”  With that, Sklar left.

             
Caroline Dahl and Dorsey Jefferson looked at one another for a long, silent moment.  One of Caroline’s eyebrows shot up; what she was looking at (a bushy-haired, slightly frazzled man wearing a moderately distressed red molka warmer) clearly did not match what she expected.

             
“You seem young,” Caroline said.

             
“Compared to what?” Dorsey replied without thinking.  “Come back in fifty years and I’ll be old.”

             
“You’re the person who replaced Ladd Bankenshoff?” she asked in an odd tone.  Possibly, a mistake had been made and a more desirable option would appear and shoo the disagreeable scruff from the room.

             
“Yeah,” Dorsey said.  “Why?”

             
“You’re the language expert…here?”

             
Dorsey narrowed his gaze.  He didn’t like the strange, little woman, nor the presumption she made to question him.

             
“What do you want?” he asked.

             
"Would you mind sharing a bit of your background with me?" she finally asked.

             
"Why?" Dorsey’s irritation grew.

             
“Curiosity.  Is there some reason you’d like to keep it private?”

             
“Where I come from, we don’t typically talk a lot about ourselves with someone we don’t know.”

             
“My name’s Caroline Dahl.”

             
It didn’t mean a thing to Dorsey.  He shrugged.  “What’s your haska?”

             
Caroline didn’t begin to know how to answer that.

             
“Please listen to me,” she continued, “You’re here because there’s…” a brief pause allowed her to consider his appearance once more, “…reason to believe that you can offer a valuable service.”

             
“Oh?”

             
“Pietro Sklar said you’re the single best language person on site.”

             
“I suppose that’s true.”

             
“Wonderful.  Can you tell me the different languages you -- ”

             
Dorsey shook his head in frustration.  “I’m sorry. 
Who
are you again?”

             
“Caroline Dahl.”

             
“What does that mean? 
Who
are – I mean, who are you with?  What is your haska??”