Then I saw the ship parked in the center of the bay, and froze where I was, midway through the doorway. My jaw hung loosely like a little hammock in which my tongue tossed restlessly as I sought the words.
After Quantunneling started tearing the transport industry apart, most shipbuilders realized that there wouldn’t be much money in selling practical designs anymore. Not the kind of ships star pilots favored: sleek and maneuverable with plenty of missile tubes and fast-enough engines to outrun enemy ships weighed down by too many missile tubes.
No. All of a sudden, anything that merely desperately needed to get somewhere could be there at half the cost and zero time, so they couldn’t make money selling ships for transportation anymore. Not long afterward, the only new ships getting built were luxury yachts that rich brackets used for vacation cruises. And with opportunities for commerce growing exponentially, there were a lot more of those rich brackets popping up. Everyone except star pilots was making money hand over fist. Even street buskers looked down on each other if they couldn’t hire a backing vocalist or two.
And new money being what it is, ship designers competed for a while to create the ship that reflected the least possible amount of taste in its owner. They made pleasure ships with gold-plated hulls, custom nacelle rims, observation lounges with bar and karaoke facilities . . . and every single one would immediately brighten up the day of any pirate who happened upon them midflight.
This became clear fairly swiftly, and decadence was toned back down a little in favor of a degree of practicality, so the newer ships tucked some plying fast engines in between all the jacuzzis. Daniel Henderson’s brand-new ship was not one of those. Mr. Henderson had presumably done very little research, and had chosen the ship on the basis of the best being the most expensive. The ship before me was the very one that many pirates had affectionately nicknamed “The Dinner Bell.”
“Oh, Christ,” I said, still staring. “It’s the Corona Platinum God of Whale Sharks.”
Start with something shaped vaguely like a jar. A huge, thick, curvy jar with very few aerodynamic properties, the kind of thing they sell yeast extract in. Then make it the size of a house so that its curved, spidery landing legs are visibly straining under the weight. Then find some way to give the jar a tumorous disease that covers it with observation bubbles, each housing a bedroom or some decadent facility or another (it’s a very strange disease). Finally, cover the whole thing in highly polished metal, colored a vibrant aquatic blue.
Warden was beside me. “Is it seriously called that?”
My gaze continued following the ship’s bulky curves as I spoke, and my voice seemed to come from far away. “Corona went through all the metals, silver class, gold class, and platinum class. Then they went through titles, king class, emperor class, up to god class—then they started using the names of fish. This was the last one Corona made before they started reining it in.”
“Yes, well, Mr. Henderson does have a tendency to indulge Daniel,” said Warden.
I turned to her. “No, what I’m trying to say is, this is a really, really bad ship to be cruising in. It’s a deathtrap.”
One of her eyebrows sprang up like a gazelle hearing a tiger fart. “My understanding was that the manufacturer has a good reputation for preventing mechanical failures.”
“It’s functional, yeah, but look at it. It might as well have a big sign trailing out the back saying ‘Pirates Please Kill Us and Take All Our Stuff.’ And it would only move like a whale shark if the whale shark was on dry land. In Earth gravity.”
“I see,” said Warden, elongating the ee. She looked up at the ship again, and frowned. “I would remind you that you assured us that you were willing to fly, I think your exact words were, ‘anything with at least one wing.’”
I looked sadly at the ship’s stubby wings. They looked about as conducive to flight as a cocktail stick lodged in a swan’s throat. “Nobody flies these things anymore, I’m telling you.”
“Urgh! I told you, Dad!” said a familiar voice from surprisingly close behind. “I told you you should have gotten me the red one.”
Daniel had come out onto the bay by the same door we had, wearing a silvery flight suit of the kind some star pilots still wore if they were too cheap to buy a shaving mirror.
Henderson wasn’t far behind, wearing a different reindeer-patterned sweater from the one he’d had the day before, combined with slippers and a pair of white shorts so short that were it not for the belt, I would’ve mistaken them for boxers. The creature known as Carlos was bringing up the rear, still wearing its specially tailored tuxedo like an unusually formal set of goalposts.
“Good morning, Mr. McKeown,” said Henderson, grinning like a shark. “You look . . .” He hesitated as he took in my appearance, which had been done no favors by a night in a cave with no changes of clothing. “. . . Present. You were saying something about this very expensive ship I picked out?”
“He was saying it’s lame!” said Daniel, just as I opened my mouth. “He was saying that it’s a load of multiplying subtraction.” He glanced at me as he used the words, and seemed downhearted by my grimace of distaste.
Mr. Henderson was still smiling, but there was a sadness in his eyes. As he locked gaze with me, he absent-mindedly picked wool pills off his reindeer sweater with his cassowary-talon ring. “Do tell us your professional opinion on the ship, Jacques.”
“It’s so lame, isn’t it, Jacques,” said Daniel, nodding to himself. “Dad should’ve gotten me the red one, shouldn’t he. God, he is so stupid, isn’t he?”
This was probably a good time to start representing myself in this little negotiation. I made a loud throat-clearing sound that inadvertently came out sounding a bit squawk-like. “Obviously it’s a very sound purchase—that shade of blue is the very latest in aerodynamic innovation, I’ve heard—but this model does tend to get attacked by pirates a lot.”
Daniel’s demeanor changed instantly. His eyes sparkled, although they could just have been reflecting the flight suit. “Oh my god. You think we might see pirates? That would be so awesome!”
“Well, I think that settles it,” said Henderson, clapping his hands. I don’t think he’d been paying attention since his last contribution to the discourse. “Have a nice time up in space, Danny, and I know you’ll get lonely without your dear old dad, but know you’ve got the best star pilot in the universe to protect you.” He kissed the top of Daniel’s head.
“URGH I HATE you,” replied Daniel, out of reflex.
“I love you too,” said Henderson, smiling at me as Daniel made a particularly loud, embarrassed noise.
Warden, who until this point had drifted into the background in a way that seemed to come very naturally to her, subtly drifted back out again. “Mr. Henderson, perhaps we should not entirely dismiss Mr. McKeown’s feelings? The important thing is Daniel’s safety, after all.”
“Oh, I agree, Penny. That’s why you’re going with them.”
Warden blinked twice. “Sir?”
“You wouldn’t expect me to leave Danny alone with a complete stranger, would you? He might end up getting sold as meat to some planet of primitive alien scumbags. I need someone I can trust up there. More importantly, someone Daniel trusts.”
“Yeah, it’s fine, can we go now?” said Daniel petulantly.
Warden looked at him, then at Henderson, then back to her pad, which provided no help. “Mr. Henderson . . . I have a great many duties as your personal assistant.”
“All taken care of, Penny. Cindy’s taking over. Aren’t you?”
Carlos slid aside with a sort of stone-like grinding noise to reveal that a young woman had been behind him all along, in a demonstration of background blending as yet unrivaled. She looked essentially identical to Warden, except younger, and smaller by a factor of around 10 percent. She was also paler, and all her facial features seemed to be arranged with infinitesimal precision like a bone china tea set.
“Ms. Warden,” she sai
d, clutching her own tablet.
“Ms. Sternall,” said Warden. An awful lot was being said in their curt greetings and locked gaze, to the point that I felt grateful that neither woman was holding a broken bottle. “Mr. Henderson, with respect, Ms. Sternall has not been my assistant long enough to fully grasp all the subtleties . . .”
“Oh, she’ll figure it out. I gave her all your login details,” interrupted Henderson, waving a hand. “Besides, you’re getting promoted. Surprise!”
“To what role?” asked Warden, in the tone of one who had just been asked what form of execution they preferred.
“To head of Henderson Lunar and Extrasolar Enterprises! You couldn’t expect me to be the one to oversee the operations. The thought of spending much more time in one of these off-world colonies makes me want to spit up blood. I left some paperwork in your cabin; check that over and you can get straight to it when you get back, yeah?”
“Can we GO now,” suggested Danny, whose repeated attempts to walk briskly into the ship had all been aborted when nobody had made any motion to follow.
“Er, I just need to stop back at the Quantunnel booth, get my stuff out of storage,” I said, pointing a thumb over my shoulder, uncomfortably aware of the tense stare-down still going on between Warden and Cindy.
“No need,” said Mr. Henderson firmly. “The ship has its own onboard Quantunnel booth. It’s got all the mod cons, you know. Now, are there any last misgivings you wish to raise?”
There was an impatient edge to his voice. Carlos, I noticed, could move pretty subtly when he wanted to: at some point he had moved to a point between me and the door by which I’d entered, responding to some shrewd instinct. When he saw me looking, he slowly folded his arms like a medieval fortress raising a pair of drawbridges.
I gave in. “No, boss,” I muttered.
“Good! I’m sure Danny will have nothing but wonderful things to tell me.” He patted me lightly on the shoulder, and I felt the little sting of an extended cassowary talon. I met his gaze, and it was a stark contrast to his tone of voice. After a moment, he gave Warden the same look, and she swallowed quietly.
Daniel pressed a shiny black remote that was still wrapped in a gift ribbon, and the airlock door hissed open with a smooth, almost seductive motion, folding down to form a set of shallow steps. Daniel walked reverently in, glancing back at Ms. Warden, who was walking slowly and stiffly as if her legs were moving with no apparent input from her conscious mind.
Henderson and Cindy watched from the edge of the docking bay, waving with a varied mixture of earnestness and sarcasm. Carlos just stared, and I had a distinct impression that some part of his mind, buried somewhere in all that muscle, was taking meticulous notes.
I followed Warden up the steps into the shining-clean airlock, and a not-unpleasant new ship smell reached my nostrils. I pressed the button to close the exterior door behind me, and appraised the two people I was now sharing an awkwardly small space with. Warden seemed frozen; her expression hadn’t changed since her stare-off with Cindy, and she was gripping the datapad with white knuckles. Daniel was staring at me like a hungry man regards a sandwich artist.
My options were becoming fewer by the moment, I realized. I might have to kidnap them.
Chapter 9
I had to admit, the buyer of the Platinum God of Whale Sharks certainly got their money’s worth, assuming what they wanted to buy was a brief period of obscene luxury and comfort followed by a prolonged one in the company of pirates. Daniel had immediately bolted off to inspect the bridge, Warden had drifted off on some errand of her own, and I was looking for the Quantunnel booth.
On the way, I found myself mentally cataloging all the problems that would arise in an emergency situation. The walls were covered in decorated silver plating, and the floor with thick-pile red carpeting, all of which would have to be hastily torn off if I needed to access components in the infrastructure. None of the interior doors locked, and there was no dedicated security or regroup room. I stumbled upon one of the observation lounges in my search, and not a single item of furniture, not the beanbag chairs or the snooker table or the karaoke machine, was bolted down. So in the event of gravity failure or depressurization, everything would go flying. The snooker table alone would rack up an impressive body count.
In the back of a small reading room—packed with Jacques McKeown’s entire body of work, naturally—I found the Quantunnel booth. For one heartening moment I thought I had found an obvious escape route, unsupervised, but the moment I booted up the interface and started searching for a destination, I was halted by a request for a passcode. Operation Kidnap was back on the table.
Fortunately, all booths had to have unrestricted access to U-Stor spaces, thanks to a law that was passed after one poor bracket was denied access to his medication, so I scanned my key ring tag and the shutters promptly opened. I toyed with the idea of sealing myself inside again, but swiftly dismissed the thought and instead recovered my gun. After a little digging, I found my shoulder holster and put it on under my jacket. This, I decided, was a concealed-carry situation.
Overpowering Daniel I didn’t see being much of a problem, but Warden would be something of an X factor. I’d have to take that datapad away from her, for a start. I had a feeling that, at the first sign of ill intent, she’d use it to hack the universe and erase me from existence. I’d probably just have to wait until she was asleep, assuming she slept and didn’t just recharge herself from a wall socket every night.
Once there was no one to interfere with where I took the ship, it would just be a matter of picking an amenable pirate family, going to their turf, and being a bit too obvious. On this ship, that would be the easy part. It really was a boarding waiting to happen.
A day ago I had thought that being a pirate wasn’t even a last resort. How naive I had been way back before the multiple threats to my life (in which I included every individual second spent in the company of Mr. Henderson). It was a stark and hungry existence, even more so than charter piloting; at least then you could always live off abandoned meals in the Sushi Station, as long as you got there before the janitors.
But at this point it was a matter of survival, and no one could blame me, especially after the treatment I’d had at the hands of Warden. I pictured her explaining the situation to the police. “He took me hostage until he could run off with a pirate gang!” “And you did nothing to provoke him, madam?” “No! Apart from directly and indirectly threatening to kill him several times and deliberately ruining his life so that he was forced to run off with a pirate gang.”
That gave me pause for thought. I stopped in the middle of a connecting hallway. Escaping the ship and joining pirates really was a fairly obvious move on my part. Warden must have considered it. What if she’d already hacked the universe to make all the pirates want me dead, too?
I heard a ladylike sigh of frustration that seemed very familiar and noticed that one of the doors in the hallway was ajar. Through the crack, I saw Warden sitting on the edge of a bed—a bed, naturally, not a recessed bunk, because large pieces of furniture are exactly what I love taking up floor space when I have to run to the bridge for an emergency course change—inspecting the contents of a briefcase, which I assumed Henderson had left here for her.
Right. This was an opportunity. I just had to start building the persona of a broken-down star pilot resigned to his predicament with absolutely no intention of moving in a piratey sort of career path. I rapped upon the door with two knuckles. “Anyone in?”
“What do you want?”
I took that as an invitation and pushed the door open wide, remaining in the door frame. In keeping with the rest of the ship, it was a very pleasant bedroom, straight out of a luxury hotel, with a wide, circular viewing window representing another crucial weak point in the hull. Warden was facing away from me, still reading the paperwork in her hands. I flicked the little switch in my head and coughed politely. “Hey. Can’t tell you how relieved I am that Hend
erson didn’t want to tag along in person.”
She didn’t look at me. “You came in here to tell me that you can’t tell me something?”
Not a promising start. “If we keep our heads down, stay in the Solar System within the reach of security services, I don’t see the trip being a problem. What I was saying about pirates earlier, that was, you know, worst-case-scenario talk. In case you were worried.”
“I see.”
“It’s like how you have to turn your phone off before making a trebuchet jump. It’s very, very unlikely to teleport us to an evil parallel universe, but anything we can do to reduce the chance . . .”
“Don’t let me keep you from the preflight checks,” she said pointedly, still not turning to look at me.
I felt I’d planted enough seeds of innocence for now. I turned to go. “All right, see you later. And congratulations on the promotion, by the way.”
There was a rustling crash of paper in distress. I spun around. Warden was suddenly standing upright, facing me and clutching her datapad in her usual professional pose, but the paperwork she had been looking at was now strewn all over the floor. It had been flung with such force that some sheets were still drifting around the room like large, rectangular snowflakes.
“Mr. McKeown,” said Warden, with a dangerous quaver in her monotone voice. The datapad was shaking.
“Ms. Warden?” I noticed that, with no actual conscious thought on my part, I had put up my hands in a surrender gesture.
“I appreciate that I have made life difficult for you.” She framed each syllable carefully, as if navigating a verbal minefield. “But both of us are mutually trapped in this extremely dangerous situation, and your smug sarcasm is not helping.”