The Hidden Treasure of Darfor

  ***

  An hour and a half later, Saleek had landed the ship at the mechanic and service shop in the east part of the settlement and had explained his predicament to the owner. However, the owner was most definitely lacking any sympathy for the lyan’s current situation.

  ‘I already told ya,’ said the head mechanic as he walked away from Saleek’s ship and towards the main workshop building, ‘that’s the best we can do.’

  ‘Are you kiddin’ me?’ spluttered Saleek in exasperation. ‘I know replacement parts don’t come cheap but even so, six thousand credits to fix the hole in my ship’s armour is ridiculous! I could buy a new engine cooling system for that amount.’

  The spiky lyan jogged to catch up with the head mechanic, who was just over four foot tall and very heavy set. The light from the powerful sun reflected off his smooth bald head as he walked and Saleek had to be careful not to look directly at it for too long lest he risk blinding himself. The desert planet was not welcoming in the slightest – it was extremely hot and dry with winds that whipped up the sand on a regular basis. If you weren’t careful, you could get dehydrated and die very quickly out in these parts.

  ‘Do we look like some fancy service depot run by a rich guy? I already told ya: we only got so many spare parts and the amount of hyper-steel ya want to fix the hole in your ship is worth a lot of money to us. Ya want it? Ya gotta pay, same as everyone else,’ insisted the mechanic.

  ‘OK, OK,’ said Saleek as he stopped the guy in his tracks. ‘I’ll tell you what – forget about the armour repair. How about just an engine refuel and full recharge for my ship’s battery? What’ll that cost me?’

  The mechanic sighed. He looked around at the collection of battered ships that littered the sandy grounds of the shop and then looked back into Saleek’s desperate eyes.

  ‘All right. We can do that for twenty thousand credits,’ he said.

  Saleek tried to control his reactions but he couldn’t. His eyes bulged as he received the news.

  ‘What? That’s daylight robbery! How can you justify charging that much?’ he asked incredulously.

  ‘I’m not sure ya realise just how bad a state your ship is in,’ answered the mechanic. ‘Your fuel levels are almost zero. We gotta purge the remaining fuel, reset the engine and fill the tank again from scratch. That’ll take ‘bout three hours. Then there’s the battery, which is almost dead. We ain’t got no huge power plants providing energy for the masses out here. Energy is highly sought after, which is why it’s so valuable and also expensive.’ He paused for a few seconds to let the lyan digest those facts, then he added, ‘If ya want, ya can try your luck somewhere else, but between ya and me, that ship of yours ain’t gonna get very far if ya try and fly away.’

  Saleek was frustrated and upset as he saw no way out of his current predicament. He had a few hundred credits left and that was it. He couldn’t possibly afford the asking price and without more fuel and energy, his ship couldn’t fly. He looked down at his feet and then brought himself to meet the mechanic’s gaze once more.

  ‘OK, I’m gonna level with ya,’ whispered Saleek quietly. ‘I ain’t got that kind of money on me. But how ‘bout some kind of trade?’

  ‘Sorry, no deal,’ replied the mechanic brusquely as he pushed Saleek aside and began to walk away again.

  ‘Wait!’ protested Saleek. He jogged after the small alien. ‘You haven’t even heard what I got to offer you!’

  ‘We don’t do deals with customers. We tried that a few years ago and people kept swindling us, so we stopped. It’s either cold, hard credits or nothing,’ explained the mechanic, who was beginning to get fed up with Saleek. ‘We can refuel and recharge your ship for twenty thousand credits or ya can go somewhere else for ya repairs. It’s ya choice.’

  Saleek watched helplessly as the mechanic walked away. He sombrely turned around and trudged back to the ship.

  ‘Well, what did they say?’ asked Patrick as Saleek entered the main cockpit.

  The human and AI both looked at him with hopeful expressions on their faces. Saleek hesitated for a moment before reluctantly telling them the bad news.

  ‘Really? That is a rather inordinate amount of money for such a relatively simple job,’ commented Zeeree.

  The blue lines and curves that composed her face twisted and transformed into an expression of sadness that took up the whole of the main view screen. Patrick had never seen her appear upset before and he found her expression eerily real for a holographic image.

  ‘Is there anything we can do?’ asked Zeeree hopefully.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ replied Saleek, looking downcast. ‘I only got around two hundred credits left in my quarters. I can’t pay the guy, at any rate.’

  Patrick considered his options and decided that if this wasn’t an emergency, he didn’t know what was.

  ‘Well, actually...’ the human began.

  Saleek turned around to look at him.

  ‘Actually what?’ said the spiky alien.

  ‘...I do have some credits stored in a secret account for emergencies. Well, I’d say that this qualifies as an emergency, wouldn’t you?’ finished Patrick.

  Saleek’s mouth dropped open in surprise.

  ‘Wait, I thought you said you didn’t have any money when we met back on Nexus One? Have you been holdin’ out on us?’

  Patrick guiltily looked around the cockpit and pretended to be fascinated by the different displays and consoles in an attempt to avoid meeting either Saleek’s or Zeeree’s gaze. Eventually he ran out of places to stare. The human slowly looked up at Saleek, who wore an expression of confusion or possibly disappointment on his green features.

  ‘Well....yeah, I suppose I have....’ mumbled Patrick in embarrassment.

  Suddenly Saleek’s face transformed from a picture of disappointment to a picture of happiness. His lips curled into a smile which quickly became a full, open-mouthed grin.

  ‘Dude! I can’t believe it!’ he said, beaming.

  Patrick blinked a few times in confusion, his brow furrowed.

  ‘W-What?’

  ‘I’m proud of ya! I guess we’re more alike than I thought, huh?’

  Patrick didn’t fully understand how the lyan could jump from one emotion to the other so rapidly but he decided to just accept it and grinned as well.

  ‘Yeah, I guess,’ said the human.

  ‘So, how much do you have in this secret account?’ asked Saleek eagerly.

  ‘Just over twenty two thousand credits,’ revealed Patrick.

  Saleek’s smile grew so wide that the human feared he might pull a muscle if he kept this up much longer.

  ‘Are you kiddin’ me? That’s brilliant!’ exclaimed the lyan in a combination of happiness and relief.

  ‘That certainly is serendipitous,’ piped up Zeeree. ‘Just the amount we require for the ship’s refuel and recharge.’

  Saleek walked over to Patrick and threw his arm around the human’s shoulder.

  ‘I’m tellin’ you, man. It must be fate, you and me meeting like we did on Nexus One. How weird is it that you have almost the exact amount of money we need right now?’

  Patrick simply shrugged and smiled.

  ‘OK, do you have the account details?’ asked Saleek.

  Patrick reached into his trouser pocket and produced a small, egg-shaped data chip.

  ‘It’s all on this memory chip,’ he explained.

  ‘All right then!’ exclaimed Saleek. ‘Let’s go pay the man and get this ship ready to fly again!’

  Chapter 19