Terrak
Azad piloted the Nine-Tenths of the Law to the wormhole, paid the toll, then let the automated systems handle the actual transit. We emerged on the other side, near a space station that was larger and rather less scruffy than Chelicera, equipped to handle the vast freighters the Mentak Coalition sent to the local colony worlds. The automated traffic control system scanned us, but we were legally owned (by another fake corporation) and didn’t send up any red flags, so the system waved us through without requiring a manual inspection.
“It’s a pretty short trip from here to Entelegyne,” Azad said.
“Assuming this ship doesn’t fall to pieces before we get there.” I was in the co-pilot’s seat, though I wasn’t doing any co-piloting. There just weren’t any other seats, only a couple of tiny bunks that were really just slots in the bulkheads.
“Hey, I looked the ship over pretty well. My best estimate is that it’ll fall apart slightly after we reach our destination, so that’s fine.” She consulted the scanners. “This planet we’re going to is really just… wow. There’s basically nobody there. It’s all automated farms, and even the supervisors use telepresence bots, with only occasional visits in person. The fleet captain has a pretty sweet little bungalow on the southern continent, with a staff of just two people. Talk about getting away from it all. It’s possible she’s got some extra personnel hidden on the grounds, since the puppetmasters suspect we’re coming, but my guess is they don’t want to let anybody they don’t control near Harlow. She’s supposed to be an honored guest at the summit on Moll Primus, but I’d be willing to bet she’s barely able to string a coherent sentence together now, if she’s been under the influence as long as we think.”
“Is she really the best candidate for the cure, then?”
“What, because she might be a vegetable with a brain full of vegetables? She might be the best candidate. If the cure works on her, then it really works , you know?”
I grunted. “What if it doesn’t work? If we go to all this trouble, and the cure simply fails, or kills her?” The idea of going to all this effort, making these hairsbreadth escapes, expending such ingenuity, only to fail , was troubling. We were being hunted, and we wouldn’t escape our pursuers forever. We needed to make progress.
Azad was less concerned. “If it doesn’t work, I’ll tell my bosses what happened – seizures, frothing, death, nothing at all – and take some blood and tissue samples, and we find another scientist to do some analysis, and my bosses send a tweaked recipe, and we try again. Nobody ever said science was easy or pretty. That said… the people I work for are smart, and they’d already done a lot of work on finding ways to disrupt Arborec communication. I’m hopeful that what we’ve got here will do the trick.”
We sailed through the star-speckled void, and eventually an orb appeared in the distance, growing in size in the screens until it became a green and cloud-streaked planet. “Entelegyne. Looks pretty from up here. You just know it’s all bugs and allergens and mud when you get to the surface though. Ugh.”
I frowned, gazing at the screen. “Azad… something just occluded one of the stars to the left of the planet.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There was a star, visible there , and then, it went dark.”
“Are you sure?” Azad pulled up an overlay of the local star chart on the screen, and all the matching stars turned green. One dot stayed stubbornly red, with no corresponding light source in reality. “Huh. You’re right. Could be an asteroid, or space junk. Anything, really.”
“It could be a ship. It could be the Temerarious .”
“No way. They’re off after the Vermilion , I’m sure of it. Duval is a dog – you throw a stick, and he’s going to chase it. He might worry he’s being tricked, but he’s not going to let it go, or delegate it, either. He’s got personal feelings about me, and they are negative.” She manipulated a few switches and buttons, then sighed. “Damn. I wish the sensors on this ship were better. We’ll have to get a lot closer before I can see what we’re dealing with.”
“There.” I pointed at the screen. “The star is back. Whatever that object is, it’s moving , and I think it’s most sensible to assume it’s a vessel that’s looking for us.”
Azad made a little growl in her throat. “Maybe the Mentak Coalition sent another ship out here, just to cover the contingencies. I really thought the puppetmasters would try to keep the circle small, to contain things… but maybe we changed their math when we spilled the truth all over the spacewaves. They could dispatch uninfected people to capture us now without worrying we’d give something away, since we already gave it away, I just didn’t think they’d have time to mobilize crews. Maybe there was a ship in the vicinity already… Well, whatever, we deal with what’s in front of us. We’re on the right trajectory to reach the planet, so I can cut our power and we’ll just keep sailing along. If they notice us at all, they’ll think we’re just a passing asteroid–”
The control console buzzed. “Incoming call,” I said. “Heavily encrypted, too. They don’t want anyone overhearing.”
Azad sighed. “I guess it would be rude not to answer.”