Nikki instantly detects a rise in tension as they make their way out on to the floor of Dock Eleven. It’s more than just the usual silent anxiety that attends an important pick-up. Her instincts tend to serve her well when it comes to these situations, and something feels off.
It’s not coming from her people, though maybe she’s picking up that they’re feeling it. She’s here with Felicia, who always carries the permits and paperwork (albeit there’s no actual paper), as well as Tug and Kobra, two of Yoram’s most dependable lieutenants. They’ve all done this twenty times at least: same routine, same schedule, same bay.
There’s a shuttle coming up through the floor right now, rising diagonally from an escalator shaft, a haze around the wingtips where the moisture in the air meets the freezing cold of the metal. The one they’re here to pick up from should have been fully unloaded by this point and being prepared for its run back to Heinlein.
The shuttles land on the outside of the wheel, after equalising their velocity and locking on to the auto-approach system. Once stationary, the craft are anchored to a platform which flips upside down then passes through the wheel to the surface. Nikki hates shuttle travel and has done it as few times as possible. She remembers the weird lurching sensation in her gut; not from the platform turning, which oddly exerts no sensation whatsoever, but from the moment when the spin of the wheel starts exerting its pseudo-gravitational force. It is merely one of a long list of things she detests about space flight.
Each of these cargo docks is like a horseshoe, overlooked by two levels of platforms along each of which are multiple delivery points. There’s constant traffic in and out of these places, maintaining the flow of supplies and materials like CdC’s vascular system.
Ground level is where the paperwork is cleared and the payloads distributed. A system of conveyor belts and elevators takes the crates and pallets from the shuttle to their allocated delivery bays, with the larger and heavier items sent higher up where the gravity is lighter, making handling and transfer easier. The bulkiest payloads flying into CdC tend to be hoppers of raw materials for the fabrication processors, but there are dedicated shuttle docks for handling that stuff. Dock Eleven is one of the many dispatch and distribution hubs handling a constant variety of freight, which is why Yoram chose it.
There is the usual hum and whir of machinery, but unfamiliar shouts are ringing around the dock. That’s what’s setting her off, Nikki realises. There are new personnel among the ground crew. Something has changed, and everybody senses that they might need to be a little sharper.
She doesn’t recognise the manifest administrator who strides across to check Felicia’s credentials and verify her order. There are other new faces hefting boxes on to the conveyor. She scans the admin’s code-badge with her lens. Officials don’t wear nametags: if your lens doesn’t let you download their details, then you’re not cleared to know their identity.
His name is Brock Lind. He seems officious but polite. Nikki doesn’t need to read anything into the fact that he’s new, but she can’t ignore how that instinctive sense of unease is gnawing at her.
Felicia transfers her details, verifying who she is and what she is here to collect.
Lind has that frozen look people get when they’re scrolling too much data on their lenses, or waiting for something to update.
“There should be five pallets,” she states, verbal confirmation remaining an important failsafe against misunderstanding or misfiled details.
Lind frowns.
“There doesn’t appear to be anything listed. The last shuttle has been processed and all payloads allocated.”
Nikki fixes him with her gaze, letting him know he’s under scrutiny.
“That can’t be right,” Felicia insists. “Despatch from Exo-Chem Industries for Agritek Laboratories, CdC Wheel One. Arriving on Shuttle Hermia, zero-five hundred hours.”
Lind gives his head a subtle shake, his tone polite but certain.
“The last shuttle to offload was Khlestakov. I don’t have a listing for your delivery on the manifest and I don’t have Hermia scheduled to land here either.”
“This is bullshit,” Felicia insists.
“Calm down,” Nikki warns her. She is suddenly aware that in her rising panic, Felicia might say something indiscreet, like asking the guy if this is a shakedown. It might well be, but if so he will make that known in time. Right now there is no reason to let him know there is anything illegal going on.
“I’m sure there’s just a snafu someplace,” Nikki continues, “and Mr. Lind will be able to help us get to the bottom of it.”
“I’m all over it,” he agrees.
Nikki watches him gesture with his fingers, working an invisible display on his lens while speaking to someone over his sub-vocal.
“Yes, Angela, I’m sending the details through now. Exo-Chem, for Agritek. Shuttle Hermia. Ah. I see. Well, that would explain it.”
“What?” Felicia asks impatiently.
He gives them an apologetic sigh, biting his bottom lip.
“I’m afraid it turns out there’s been an incident on W2. An unscheduled all-stop. Nothing’s been able to land there since it happened, so all shuttles are being diverted here to W1. They’re pulling in the Meridian staff for overtime. It’s about to get real busy in here.”
Nikki looks up the local feeds on her lens. He’s not lying. W2 has stopped rotating and is in a state of lockdown until they can get the problem fixed, after which everybody is going to be busy mopping when the gravity comes back on.
“So where the hell is our stuff?” Felicia demands.
Lind pauses, searching again.
“On auto-approach now. Dock Two.”
“Dock Two? That’s all the way over on fucking Sharman.”
“Sorry. They’ve altered the landing priorities. Updated all our schedules.”
“With the stuff bound for Wheel Two jumping the queues, no doubt,” Kobra grumbles wearily.
“Looks like,” Lind agrees with a shrug. “Tough break. What you gonna do?”
It’s a rhetorical question, but Lind looks to Felicia and to Nikki as though they might answer.
“We’d better hustle,” Felicia says, already starting to head out of the dock.
“I’ll catch you up,” Nikki replies.
She turns to Lind.
“Just want to apologise for my colleague there, Brock. She’s under a lot of pressure to meet targets.”
“Don’t worry about it. Who isn’t?”
“Still, you were just doing your job, and she shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. So I’d like to make reparation by way of a little heads-up.”
“About what?”
“You’re new, aren’t you?”
“Not to Seedee, but this is a new position, sure. I worked in cargo management before.”
“You had a safety inspection lately, from the FNG Compliance people?”
“Not since I started here, no.”
“Well, forewarned is forearmed. They can issue on-the-spot fines for code violations. There’s a scam they run, a health-and-safety deal to do with pressure seals on the platform access hatch. Let me show you.”
Nikki leads him around the side of the shuttle, out of sight of the freight handlers. She crouches down next to a maintenance channel leading down into the shaft through which the shuttle platforms pass. Upon her fingers brushing the interface panel, an LED sign illuminates, warning her that she must be wearing a safety harness and tethered to two anchor points before entering. She twists the hydraulic safety bolts and slides back the lid, a blast of cold escaping from the gap.
“You see this?” she asks Lind, pointing inside.
He crouches beside her and leans forward.
Nikki sweeps his legs and pitches him over, thrusting his head into the shaft until he is pivoting on his thighs, prevented from falling only by the grip she has around his ankles.
He looked just a moment too long, after he asked “What you gonna do?” That’s all it took to give away that he was lying. He’d been covering it pretty good, but he was anxious and he wanted reassurance that they were buying it.
“Holy shit, what the fuck you doing?” he asks. His voice disappears into the vastness of the shaft.
“Where’s our stuff? Who paid you off, you little prick?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I swear. I just got transferred here. Jesus Christ.”
She lets go for a fraction of a second. Enough for him to feel himself drop.
“I asked you a fucking question, Brock. What happened to our shipment?”
“Okay, I’ll tell you,” he whimpers. “Just pull me up.”
“Wrong way round. Answer first.”
“Dock Nine. The Hermia is landing at Dock Nine.” He answers in an urgent squeal, breathless and desperate.
“Why did you tell us Dock Two? Who you got on Nine waiting to steal our shit?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” he gibbers. “I got a pay-off to reroute Hermia. Guy in a bar last night. I don’t know his name. Never saw him before. He wasn’t the kind of guy you ask a lot of questions. Please pull me up, oh Jesus.”
“What he look like? Send me his pic.”
“I don’t have it.”
“Bullshit. You didn’t record him? Weird stranger comes up in a bar and bribes you and you don’t take the guy’s fucking picture at least?”
“He made me delete.”
“Describe him.”
“It was dark. I only—”
She lets him slide another couple of inches.
“Okay, big, blond, tan jacket. Tattoo on his neck, some kind of Greek symbol.”
Omega. One of Julio’s people.
Fuck.