The room was just a hotel room, and despite the lack of windows, seemed comfortable enough. There was a double bed and a writing desk that could have come from any hotel resort in the galaxy, if they hadn’t been bolted down. The room smelled strongly of fresh paint and there was no hot water, but it was still better than sleeping in the Neverdie. At least the bed was a bed, not a blanket thrown over a stack of unclaimed suitcases. And I was woken from my brief nap by the sound of construction, rather than a knife fight over the last parking bay.
Peter knocked on the door an hour before dinner, and handed me a number of shrink-wrapped objects. “Rob said to give you these,” he said. “Had to guess at your size.”
The first package was a pair of distressed jeans. The second was a T-shirt bearing the words “I Found Elation on Salvation Sation.”
“Take it you’ll be keeping your flight jacket?” he asked.
Pilots understood pilots. Wearing anything other than your own flight jacket, with its unique pattern of wear and tear and custom sewn-on patches, was like losing your keys and breaking into the wrong house. “Of course.”
“Dinner’s in the main refectory, just next to the Quantunnel chamber. And that lady friend of yours was out in the hall, looking like a French poodle got lost at the dog track. Said to tell you to hurry up. See you at dinner.”
I considered this information, then went back inside, leisurely changed my clothes, and took an additional ten minutes or so to carefully comb my hair to just the right level of endearingly scruffy. Then I came out and met Warden.
Either she hadn’t been offered a change of clothes or she’d opted out for some characteristically paranoid reason, as she was still in her office attire. She offered me a scowl as I appeared, which I found absolutely delicious.
“Cheer up,” I said, in a maddeningly good mood. “Mission accomplished, right?”
“Maybe,” she said. “But this isn’t exactly what I was expecting of a pirate community.”
“Oh, well, I’m so sorry,” I said dryly as we made our way through the surprisingly wide hallways of Salvation Station. “Let’s leave immediately and roam around the Black some more until we find a pirate clan that’s slightly more to your taste. What is your problem? We’re in the Black, they’ve taken us in, we got what we wanted.”
“I did not say it wouldn’t suffice, McKeown. I simply have a concern that these people may not be pirates at all. They seem bent on founding a governed colony recognized by human authorities.”
“Is this seriously happening? You, Warden, are about as far from a pirate as you are from being pleasant company, and you’re complaining that these pirates aren’t piratey enough? I’d have thought you’d be all for it. Bringing law and order to the wild lands and all that.”
Enough contempt radiated from her single raised eyebrow to match a thousand mothers-in-law. “McKeown. The whole reason we came here was to escape the law. From the very human authorities Blaze and his ilk intend to welcome with open arms.”
I genuinely hadn’t thought of that, but I wasn’t about to drop the good mood. “That’s serious long-term-problem territory. Anyway, he said we aren’t the only fugitives here. Maybe they’re working out some kind of amnesty thing.”
“I’m assuming as much, but that is one of many questions I have for Blaze. I’ve already taken note of several areas that may need better management.”
I blew out through my lips. “You are so plying Terran. It seems to have gotten along perfectly well so far without your divine insight.”
“Why are you so enthusiastic? You saw it. Blaze is bringing quantum tunneling to the one place in the universe where they haven’t yet made pilots obsolete. I think he intends to turn you and your colleagues into some kind of living museum.”
“Look, Robert Blaze knows what he’s doing. Robert Blaze never puts a foot wrong.” That had been part of the theme song from his short-lived Saturday morning cartoon series.
She nodded. “So it is hero worship, then.”
“Maybe it is!” I barked. “So what? Oh, you’ve probably never had a hero. Probably far too human a concept for the amazing android PA to understand.”
“You mean gynoid, McKeown. Androids are male.”
By now we were in the concourse, and I’d noticed that the many passing technicians and star pilots were giving us funny looks every time she addressed me by that name. I stopped in front of her and leaned forward confrontationally. “Will you stop calling me McKeown? Hardly need to keep the subterfuge going now, do we.”
We continued in silence for a short while, me fizzling with renewed energy and Warden biting her lip in consideration. Soon, the door to the refectory was in sight, directly opposite the unfinished Quantunnel gate as promised. It was a suitably grand archway, and a professionally made plaque overhead read Welcome Center in indented letters. Over that, though, someone had tacked a piece of notepaper bearing the words Temporary Refectory.
“Did you pick up on anything interesting in Robert Blaze’s conversation?” asked Warden, peering at me coyly with a hand on her chin.
“You mean besides his grand, radical scheme to change the face of the Black and bring a new lease on life to the disaffected pilots of the universe?” I said patiently. “No, not especially.”
“I meant specifically in relation to Jacques McKeown.”
I rolled my eyes back and forth, replaying the conversation in my head, or what I could remember through the haze of completely heterosexual man crush. “What are you getting at?”
“I thought he seemed very quick to accept that you aren’t actually Jacques McKeown,” she said, with a look in her eye reminiscent of a biblical serpent. “Rather strangely quick.”
“Yes, well? That should be blatantly obvious to anyone with an ounce of sense. For one thing, I don’t have horns growing out of my skull.”
“The phrase I picked up on was ‘I happen to know that for a fact,’ in reference to Jacques McKeown being a pen name. But how would he know that for a fact? Or that you weren’t Jacques McKeown from the moment you entered the room? Unless . . .”
“Unless he knows who Jacques McKeown is,” I finished, my walk slowing and my voice turning monotone as I completed the thought.
Warden coughed. “Or.”
It looked for a minute like we were going to make the entirety of the remainder of the conversation solely through meaningful looks and eyebrow waggles, before I resolutely stepped in front of her and did the confrontational-lean thing again. “Not possible.”
“It would explain why McKeown has never taken his payment,” she said, not making eye contact. “It would make more sense if he were somewhere remote, away from banking networks, where currency is less useful.”
“That doesn’t mean . . .” I waggled an index finger in the narrowing gap between our faces. “Robert Blaze cannot be Jacques McKeown. Jacques McKeown has ripped off Robert Blaze more than any other—”
I stopped as I listened to my own words. “Almost as if his stories were closer to hand than others,” said Warden, voicing my sudden thought.
The meaningful-look-eyebrow-waggle conversation resumed for a few seconds before Warden tactfully stepped around me and continued toward the refectory. She was the one with renewed energy now, and she walked with a smug flounce in her hips.
I entered the Welcome Center just behind her. This seemed to be one of the areas of Salvation Station that was closest to completion. It took up most of the concourse level of the station’s central core and, like a cathedral, had a tall ceiling with a skylight. A bright imitation-sun lamp had been placed above it, casting down heavenly beams of light.
It illuminated a vaguely circular room ringed with reception desks and tasteful classical pillars. The floor was marble, or a damn fine imitation of it, and there was a large logo in the center that I could only presume was the intended symbol of this startup nation. It showed a ship, a sleek, traditional star piloting model not dissimilar to the one associated with Blaze,
flying around a patch of space with stars, leaving a vapor trail that looped around it like a lasso.
Around it, several rattly metal folding tables had been set up, each one flanked by benches that seemed to be intended eventually for communal seating areas, almost completely occupied with pilots and technicians. Since the tables were arranged in a circle there was no place of prominence, but Blaze seemed to be carrying one around with him, and he stood out like a messiah at a last supper.
He stood and gave us an enthusiastic greeting as we entered, gesturing to two vacant seats at either side of him. Jemima and Daniel sat past the empty seat on his left. Jemima was sitting with her elbows drawn in as closely as possible to avoid nudging the hairy technician on her left. Daniel seemed to be occupied with eating an entire bowl of rehydrated mashed potatoes.
“Come in, friends; take your seats,” Robert Blaze announced grandly. “The dining is presently rather simple fare. Once we have proper connections to the rest of human civilization, we can start bringing some talent in to run the restaurants, but until then, I hope this will suffice.”
Most of the food had the plasticky sheen of preservatives powerful enough to sustain it through lengthy storage, the sort of thing normally intended for school cafeterias. But it more than sufficed. I’d forgotten how long it had been since I’d eaten properly. I loaded up a plastic plate with fries, baked beans, rectangular mini pizzas, and dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets.
“Try the wine,” suggested Blaze, filling my plastic tumbler from a large jug. “Again, we haven’t properly stocked the bars and clubs yet, but some of our boys and girls have an interest in homebrew.”
I obediently tried it. It slammed down into my stomach like a stone slab, throwing up dust and fog that flooded my head. “Mmm,” I summarized. “I could get behind it. Don’t usually see wine with a head on it, do you.”
Blaze smiled happily as I filled my tumbler to the rim. “Now, I want both of you to have a full understanding of what we’re trying to build here,” he said. “I’ve shown you around, and I like to think it speaks for itself. I’ll answer whatever questions you have.”
Even through the haze of drink that I was endeavoring to thicken, I could sense that immediately throwing McKeown-related accusations around probably wouldn’t be a good idea. If anything, that would be something more for the coffee-and-cigars phase of the meal. So I decided to start soft and steer the questioning gradually in the right direction.
Then Warden got there first. “Mr. Blaze, how long have you and the others been working on this station?”
“Please. Call me Rob. We set the first foundations just under a year ago. My crew and I had been roaming the Black for some time, ever since Quantunneling came about. We saw the writing on the wall pretty quickly and thought we could live out our days adventuring, foraging for what food we could find on planets with organic life.”
“And you were wrong?” deduced Warden aloud.
His features clouded over somewhat. “We managed for a while. But organic is one thing, and edible is quite another. When food began growing scarce, certain members of my crew became . . . difficult.”
I was in mid gulp and slammed my tumbler back down as I remembered a conclusion I’d reached earlier. “Your Zoob!” I said, only slightly slurred. “Did the Zoob bite your hand off?”
Blaze looked at me tolerantly but warningly. “Yes. I was the only member of my crew to get away alive. There were four others, besides Zoobster. All of them were close friends. As I believed Zoobster to be.”
I endeavored to crawl back inside my cup. “Sorreeee.”
“It’s quite all right.” He snapped back into cheerful, charismatic mode. I wondered if he had a switch inside his head, too. “I realized something had to be done. At first, it wasn’t much more than a conjoining of effort with others who had crossed the Black, an organized attempt to take down Zoob-infested ships and push back the competing pirate groups. Our numbers kept growing with disillusioned pilots, and we began to feel that perhaps we had a greater calling.”
“But you are a pirate organization,” said Warden.
“I won’t deny it,” said Blaze cheerfully. “We need to eat. Trade for building materials. We’d do honest work out here if any was available. The gratitude of a saved planet doesn’t go a long way to pay the fuel bills.”
“I hear that!” I interjected, probably too loudly.
“But we also have a code,” said Blaze, looking serious. “One we already had. The unwritten conduct of a star pilot: to help the innocent and fight for what’s right. We don’t kill, and we don’t steal what’s truly needed. Sadly, there are plenty of pirates out here who do not see things the same way.”
“Surely you must have realized that connecting with the rest of human society will mean having to face justice for the breaking of spacefaring laws?” asked Warden.
“Of course we’re aware of that. Very intelligent question.” He offered Warden the kind of winning smile that would melt the thighs of a hundred space princesses, but it bounced off her like a paper dart against a stone statue. “Like I said, a lot of our money comes from fugitives seeking shelter. Frankly, we need to explore every available opportunity for funding. One of our top priorities, when we negotiate trading and transport connections, is to secure an intergalactically recognized amnesty for all crimes committed by our settlement team.”
“Do you believe you will get it?”
“I believe we’re creating something here that human society wants,” said Blaze. “I believe they will want it more than justice for a few minor misdemeanors.”
“I see,” said Warden. “The pirates who do not share your code—do they ever attempt to attack?”
“You saw the defense system on your way in, didn’t you?”
“But how do you tell the difference between them and the members of your own community?”
Blaze shrugged. “So far, we get by just from everyone knowing each other. We have a man on every turret eyeballing the ships as they come in. I realize we will need something more efficient . . .”
“Yes, you do,” interrupted Warden. “I have a contact at Argus Armaments. They’ve developed an automation system for turrets I could get for you at cost. You can make your turrets automatically fire upon any ship that does not transmit a unique code, which you give to all your friendlies.”
Blaze was stroking his beard, intrigued. “That certainly does sound more efficient. We should have a serious talk about that in future.”
“How are you for onboard armaments? Computer systems?”
Blaze gave Warden a sidelong look. “Penelope, wasn’t it?” He filled the glass in front of her with wine, which she politely ignored. “I’m slightly afraid to ask who you used to work for, but I’m starting to think that their loss was my gain.”
Meanwhile, I’d been drinking increasingly and was starting to feel resentful, as if my date was chatting a little too flirtatiously with the waitress. “You’ve got no idea,” I said into Blaze’s ear, one hand on his shoulder to keep myself steady. “He’sh why she did thish whole kidnapping thing.”
“Yeah, uh, I totally won’t press charges about that if you don’t want,” said Jemima. Daniel said something indistinct through a mouthful of dinosaur chicken nuggets.
“I imagine you would be more worried about the theft you have committed,” said Warden, spearing me with a meaningful look.
I frowned. “What theft? You mean the ship? We didn’t blow it up.”
“I was actually referring to your recent windfall.”
“Ah!” I slapped the tabletop hard enough to make all the plates rattle. I realized I’d been handed the perfect opportunity to move toward an answer on the Jacques McKeown mystery. I leaned toward him, watching for changes in his face. “I short of acshidentally nicked Jacques McKeown’sh money. Like, all of it.”
Blaze seemed nonplused, but this was probably more to do with the way I was leaning into his personal space, carefully scrutinizing hi
m with narrowed eyes. He politely leaned away. “How did you do that . . . accidentally?”
“Funny shtory,” I said. Keeping my head up was starting to take some effort, so I briefly rested it on his shoulder. “Hish pub-lush-er mishtook me for the real Jacques McKeown and shent me all hish money he wash shupposhed to get for all hish traccy booksh he wrote.”
“All his money?” asked Blaze, half smiling with his mouth and half frowning with his eyes.
“Dunno why he’sh never claimed it.” I shook my head back and forth, grinding my chin into his shoulder. “He doeshn’t return their callsh or shomething. I’m not about to shtart looking for the real one, I tell ya that. I mean.” I stepped the scrutinizing look up a bit. “HE COULD BE ANYWHERE.”
“Well, quite,” said Blaze mollifyingly. “You know, that’s actually really interesting.”
“Yes, well, returning to salient points . . .” said Warden.
Blaze ignored her outright. “If that was all the money he’s ever been owed for every single book, it must be a pretty huge sum.”
“Yep,” I said, draining my tumbler and holding it out meaningfully as Blaze reached for the jug. “Don’t even know what to do with it all. Maybe keep enough to keep myshelf going and give shome to a charity for pilotsh or shomething.”
“Well, they do say charity begins at home, you know,” said Blaze, looking up at the light coming down from the skylight.
I twigged what he was getting at after a few false starts and slammed my tumbler back down, creating a momentary little homebrew-wine fountain that seriously contaminated my fries. “Oh hey! Yeah. Thish ish totally a charity for pilotsh, ishn’t it. Well. Maybe your uncle Shanta Jacques McKeown Claush will put a little preshent in your shtocking if you be a very very very very good boy.”
“More wine?”
“Ooh! Good shtart.”
Chapter 18
And then I woke up.
Which is to severely understate the massive amount of effort that went into it. My metabolism had been fighting a battle on the Russian front that was my liver since the moment I’d passed out, and it was frankly astonishing that I was even alive. My return to consciousness felt like an enormous sunken ship finally breaking surface after an all-night salvage operation.