They were more than half way to becoming a battle cruiser.
Elyssia scanned the planet's market list with Alex. For all that Xezaorians liked exotic things, they had precious little to offer. Two narcotics were available — arcturan burstweed and, strangely, tobacco — and Alex thought hard about them.
'Surely we could get away with tobacco…'
'Uh-huh.' Elyssia murmured. 'No way. Nicotine is deadly, even in low doses, to many races.'
'If we carried it to a human world?'
'Still too risky.'
Minerals were on offer, but were pricy. Durassion — one of the ores that could be refined and 'time-stressed' to give duralium for ship's hulls — was available at eight credits the tonne, and that would sell exceptionally well at Lave… but Lave was many light years away, now, and any dura-ore could bottom — out on a standard day when a richer ore was found.
Too risky.
Gemstones? There were maroon and silver spectonals for sale, and red-green emeronds. A pirate convoy would smell such booty from two light years away.
As for the curiosity market there were two hundred fossilised Dironothaxaurian life-bones on offer, at forty credits each.
'Ever heard of them?' Elyssia asked.
Alex said, 'I've seen one. And heard one. In a museum on my homeworld. They sing. They're over forty million years old, and still they sing; waiting for something, a hatching, or a change of climate. They're bones from the pelvic region, so they could be incubation pods. Nobody knows…'
'Are they valuable?'
'Very. Exactly by how much I don't know.'
'Check it for restrictions…'
Alex did so. There were no known import restrictions, or potential legal violations involved in trading in these fossilised animal bones.
'Better than food—' Alex said.
'Any day,' Elyssia agreed.
'So we go for it…'
'I suppose so.'
But as Alex began to key into the trade-centre to purchase the goods, the console flashed the words, 'Incoming message…'
'Rafe!' Alex said. And Elyssia too seemed excited at the prospect of seeing and talking with Rafe Zetter again.
But it was not the wizened, crusty old space trader who appeared on the screen as Alex accepted the call.
Nothing like.
It was a human being, and not a humanoid alien that faced them. But what had happened to its face was beyond description. There were many ways to change ordinary human looks to nightmarish caricatures of the same: flying too close to certain stars, being exposed to the interstellar vacuum too often, working in certain ore and mineral mines… But Alex, as he stared at the lumpy, grey swellings that swathed this person's flesh, could not imagine what grotesque disaster had befallen the caller.
Lips like quivering gossamer wings trembled in the grey flesh. A hand, skeletal and crippled, shot through with bright red blood vessels, touched the wispy ginger hair that grew in a bizarre floral circle around the deformed head.
'Are you Ryder?'
The voice, at least, was normal. And male.
'Identify yourself, caller.'
Ignoring the question the other man went on, 'What're you trading in this time? Minerals? Specialities?'
'What's it to you?'
'Whatever it is you're thinking of buying, I can do you a better deal.'
'I wouldn't trade with you if I was running hot from a supernova.'
The human grinned (or so it seemed).
'Rafe Zetter would. How come you're so fussy?'
'You know Rafe?' Alex asked, perturbed and puzzled by the grotesque man's invocation of the friendly name.
'Me and half the Universe.' The deformed man leaned closer to the monitor.
His features filled the screen totally. 'Parasites.'
'I'm sorry?'
'These things. This… 'tapping his face. 'Parasites. Spider worms. I did a stint in the pen. on Dykstra's world, and the little buggers took a liking to me. These are the larvae, about two million of them. They'll hatch out in about ten years, and that'll be the end of me. I sort of hope
I'm at a dinner party with someone I don't like, at the time, but you can't plan for these things. I don't blame you for not trusting me…' Pale eyes glittered from beneath the heavy, pulsating folds of grey flesh. 'But don't judge by appearances. Alex — it is Alex, isn't it? I mean, for hell's sake tell me if I've got the wrong number…'
'I'm Alex Ryder.'
'And I'm Patrick McGreavy. I'll say just two things to you. The first is this: when you kill the snake, you'll lay a ghost that's haunted me for more than five years. I'm not a flier. What I am doesn't matter. There are more people like me than all the sunflower seeds you've traded in your life. People who need vengeance. People who can't do it for themselves.
Kill the snake and you'll do a service to us all.' Alex couldn't help the wry smile that touched his lips, even though he had rarely felt less like smiling. He felt as if he was being manoeuvred, manipulated, like a robot ship, an autoremote, programmed to fly in endless, mindless circles. What the hell was going on? He was Jason Ryder's son, and until three months ago his best combat experience had been in a SimCombat trainer. His pilot's licence had hardly dried. And somehow, despite all of this, he had been chosen as nemesis to exact a savage vengeance from a ship that was certainly far more than a simple — and simply deadly — pirate.
There were people watching him, and waiting on him, their fingers crossed, their breath held.
Why him? Why him? (And Elyssia…)
'Okay,' he said quietly. 'I get the message. You said "two things".'
'Right. Rafe told you to trade in Shanaskilk fur, as soon as you could afford it. Am I right?'
He was right. It was one of Rafe's last pieces of advice to Alex, and Alex had not forgotten it.