Oxley managed to jerk a nod. “What about you?”
“I will hold the possessed off until you leave Pernik. Then I will begin the great journey.” The big lips pressed together in compassion. “If it is of any comfort, you may tell our kind I am now truly sorry for Jantrit. I was utterly and completely wrong.”
“Yes.”
“I do not ask forgiveness, for it would not be in Edenism’s power to grant. But tell them also that I came good in the end.” The face managed a small, clumsy smile. “That ought to set the cat among the pigeons.”
The giant turned and clumped out of the cabin. When it reached the top of the airlock stairs it lost all cohesion. A huge gout of milky white liquid sloshed down onto the metal grid of the landing pad, splattering the flyer’s landing gear struts.
The flyer was five hundred kilometres from Pernik and travelling at Mach fifteen up through the ionosphere when the end came.
Laton waited until the diminutive craft was beyond any conceivable blast range, then used his all-pervasive control to release every erg of chemical energy stored in the island’s cells simultaneously. It produced an explosion to rival an antimatter planetbuster strike. Several of the tsunami which raced out from the epicentre were powerful enough to traverse the world.
It was a quiet evening in Harkey’s Bar. Terrance Smith’s bold little fleet had departed the previous day, taking with it a good many regulars. The band audibly lacked enthusiasm, and only five couples were dancing on the floor. Gideon Kavanagh sat at one table; the medical nanonic package preparing his stump for a clone graft was deftly covered by a loose-fitting purple jacket. His companion was a slim twenty-five-year-old girl in a red cocktail dress who giggled a lot. A group of bored waitresses stood at one end of the bar, talking among themselves.
Meyer didn’t mind the apathetic atmosphere for once. There were some nights when he really didn’t feel like maintaining the expected image of combination raconteur, bon viveur, ace pilot, and sex demon—the qualities that independent starship captains were supposed to possess in abundance. He was too old to be keeping up that kind of nonsense.
Leave it to the young ones like Joshua, he thought. Although with Joshua it was hardly an act.
Nor was it always an artificial pose for you,Udat said.
Meyer watched one of the young waitresses swish past the end of the booth, an oriental with blonde hair whose long black skirt was split up to her hips. He didn’t even feel remotely randy, just appreciative of the view. Those days seem to be long gone,he told the blackhawk with an irony that wasn’t entirely insincere.
Cherri Barnes was sitting in the booth with him; the two of them sharing a chilled bottle of imported white Valencay wine. Now there was a woman he felt perfectly comfortable with. Smart, attractive, someone who didn’t feel compelled to talk into any silences, a good crew member too; and they’d been to bed on several occasions over the years. No incompatibility there.
Her company lightens you,Udat proclaimed. That makes me happy.
Oh, well, as long as you’re happy . . .
We need a flight. You are growing restless. I am eager to leave.
We could have gone to Lalonde.
I think not. Such missions do not sit well with you any more.
You’re right. Though Christ knows I would have liked a crack at that bastard Laton. But I suppose that’s something else best left to Joshua and his ilk. Though what he wanted to go for after the money he pulled in on the Norfolk run beats me.
Perhaps he feels he has something to prove.
No. Not Joshua. There’s something odd going on there. And knowing Joshua, money is at the root of it. But no doubt we’ll hear about it in due course. In the meantime the Lalonde mission has left a pleasing shortage of starships docked here. Finding a charter should be relatively easy.
There were those Time Universe charters available. Claudia Dohan specifically wanted blackhawks to deliver the fleks of Graeme Nicholson’s sensevise. Time was of the essence, she said.
Those charters were all rush and effort.
It would have been a challenge.
If I’d wanted my mother as a permanent companion rather than a blackhawk I would never have left home.
I am sorry. I have upset you.
No. It’s this Laton business. It has me worried. Fancy him turning up again after all this time.
The navy will find him.
Yeah. Sure.
“What are you two talking about?” Cherri asked.
“Huh? Oh, sorry,” he grinned sheepishly. “It’s Laton, if you must know. Just thinking of him running round free again . . .”
“You and fifty billion others.” She picked up one of the menu sheets. “Come on, let’s order. I’m starving.”
They chose a chicken dish with side salad, along with a second bottle of wine.
“The trouble is, where can you travel to that’s guaranteed safe?” Meyer said after the waitress departed. “Until the Confederation Navy finds him, the interstellar cargo market is going to be very jumpy. Our insurance rates are going to go through the roof.”
“So shift to data-courier work. That way we don’t have to physically dock with any stations. Alternatively, we just fetch and carry cargo between Edenist habitats.”
He shifted his wineglass about on the table, uncomfortable with the idea. “That’s too much like giving in, letting him win.”
“Well, make up your mind.”
He managed a desultory smile. “I dunno.”
“Captain Meyer?”
He glanced up. A smallish black woman was standing at the end of the booth’s table, dressed in a conservative grey suit; her skin was black enough to make Cherri seem white. He guessed she was in her early sixties. “That’s me.”
“You are the owner of the Udat ?”
“Yes.” If it had been anywhere else but Tranquillity, Meyer would have pegged her as a tax inspector.
“I am Dr Alkad Mzu,” she said. “I wonder if I could sit with you for a moment? I would like to discuss some business.”
“Be my guest.”
He signalled to a waitress for another wineglass, and poured out the last of the bottle when it arrived.
“I require some transportation outsystem,” Alkad said.
“Just for yourself? No cargo?”
“That is correct. Is it a problem?”
“Not for me. But the Udat doesn’t come cheap. In fact, I don’t think we’ve ever carried just one passenger before.”