Darwin, Australia
13.JAN.2283
THE ARMORED TRUCK hummed through Darwin’s old warehouse district, crushing rock and garbage alike beneath its thick, knobby tires.
“Where is everyone?”
Skyler emerged from a daydream at the sound of the voice. He’d slumped into the deep cushions of the passenger seat and let the warmth of the day and the motion of the ride lull his senses. He looked across the wide cab at Angus, and noted the tense manner in which he gripped the steering wheel. “Hiding. Watching from inside.”
Angus nodded, but his brow creased. “Why?”
The innocence in his voice made Skyler grin. Angus had lived a privileged life by Darwin standards. He’d grown up inside a sky crane, sitting beside his pilot father, flying water shipments from East Point up to Nightcliff. At age six, his dad let him take the stick for the first time, or so Angus told it. He was seventeen now, all gangly limbs and shaggy black hair, and already a better pilot than Skyler.
If only he had some street smarts, Skyler thought. “A working vehicle, this far from the Elevator, means nothing but trouble to these people.”
Angus eased back into his seat. “Right. Makes sense.”
They drove past a lone bicyclist, wearing a scarf across his face and an AK-47 on his back. Saddlebags were strapped to a frame over the wobbly back tire. A courier.
“Don’t fool yourself,” Skyler added. “Once they realize we’re not from Nightcliff, they’ll try to take it.”
A white lie, but he wanted Angus alert. In truth, the locals had no use for such a large and complicated machine. They couldn’t maintain it, much less charge the capacitors. And even if it were stolen, Skyler knew there were twenty more just like it waiting, never used, at a supply depot in Russia. The same place he and Skadz found this one, three years ago.
No, the bicyclist disappearing in the rearview mirror had much more reason to worry. A bike meant all sorts of opportunity.
Skyler turned to face the window, watching with vague interest as a light drizzle rearranged the dirt on it.
Looking up, beyond the rooftops, he could see the cord of the Elevator. Morning sunlight glinted off the thin thread. It looked like a strand of spider silk, stretching to infinity. After all these years the sight still filled him with awe.
Lifeline to Earth, they say. Yet everything of value goes up.
He strained his neck to look higher, tracing the slightly skewed line until it faded into the sky.
“Any climbers?” Angus asked.
“Not a damn one,” Skyler said. He frowned. Ten hours ago, Skyler had stood on the roof of his hangar and watched with growing concern as the stuck climbers began to move again. Instead of continuing their journey up to Gateway Station, the vehicles had come down. Since then, nothing. The cord, for the first time Skyler could remember, was vacant.
If the situation went on much longer, he feared, a full-fledged revolution would ensue. As nasty as Blackfield was, Skyler didn’t like the alternatives. Ambitious crime lords, or even zealous Jacobites, would try to fill that void.
The truck slowed. Skyler turned his attention forward and saw a shanty building that had collapsed into the road. Laborers young and old, of varying ethnicities, scrambled over the rubble, picking it clean of useful items. Bits of copper pipe, electrical wiring, insulation. They worked under the watch of two Asian men armed with machetes, enforcers for whatever local gang claimed this stretch of road. They shared a cigarette between them, and one swatted a resting worker, using the flat of his blade to urge the sullen youngster back to his task.
The laborers would be paid with a meal, perhaps two. A hell of a way to put food on the table, Skyler thought. The city teemed with such unskilled workers. Those who’d fled to Darwin as the disease raged across the planet, with nothing but the clothes they wore and no goal other than survival. Few had the skills humanity needed, and they found little opportunity to better themselves. To learn a trade here meant moving up into a wholly different caste. The ability to stitch a wound or a sweater, fix a bike, cultivate a seed—such knowledge made all the difference.
Several lean-tos, made from bits of tarp and plastic trash bags, clustered around the base of the debris pile. A Middle Eastern family huddled within one, wrapped in threadbare silk scarves and thin blankets. One child among them was racked with a violent cough.
“Go around,” Skyler said. Though he was immune to the disease beyond the city limit, earthly ailments were another matter. “Not too slow.”
Angus complied, jerking the vehicle hard to the right and accelerating. He squeezed the truck between the rubble and a concrete wall across the street, a scant few centimeters separating them from the hard surface.
“Nice piece of driving,” Skyler said.
At the next corner, a small crowd gathered around a man clad in improvised white robes. A Jacobite preacher. He stood atop a wooden box, his face contorted as he spewed a sermon. A woman paced back and forth in front of him. She hoisted a tattered flag, blood-red with their emblem hand-painted in white: the Christian cross, with a ladder forming the vertical part.
Skyler had no stomach for the sect, who believed the space elevator to be Jacob’s Ladder. They preyed on the bored and desperate rabble of Darwin’s outer districts and in Skyler’s view were little more than a criminal gang. Worse than that, a criminal gang with devout followers.
“Give this freak a wide berth, Angus,” Skyler said.
“Gladly,” he replied.
Skyler scanned the crowd and the buildings all around them. Jacobites usually traveled in groups, often armed.
The sermon halted at the approach of the vehicle. As the truck rolled by, the preacher stared at Skyler with an unflinching gaze full of simmering hatred.
He must think we’re from Nightcliff, Skyler thought. And if he has friends around …
“Quickly now, Angus.”
The kid steered back into the center of the road and pushed the accelerator. The electric motors whined from the surge of power, and Skyler felt himself pressed into his seat as they picked up speed.
Through the side mirror, Skyler watched the preacher and his crowd fade from view.
After a few blocks, he told Angus to ease up. The streets were clear here, and safe, in relative terms. One of the rare neighborhoods that banded together for the collective good. Such places were easy to spot from above, with gardens flourishing on every roof. Maintaining a grove of papaya or banana trees wasn’t easy with thieves or jealous vandals next door.
He wondered, not for the first time, how much food Darwin would really need from orbit if the populace would stop living like prisoners in a gulag.
Crumbling warehouses passed by, each one a relic of Darwin’s boom years after the Elevator arrived. Skyler tallied the faded logos of aerospace companies and construction firms.
More than a few bore the Platz Industries name. On one, a likeness of Neil Platz had been painted to resemble Stalin. Skyler smirked at that; the drawing was rather good.
“Turn in here,” he said, pointing at a nondescript parking garage.
Angus swerved the vehicle into the open maw of the multilevel structure. Darkness swallowed them. Inside he stepped hard on the brakes, just centimeters from an interior iron gate. “What now?”
A thick exterior barricade rolled closed behind them, sandwiching the vehicle. Angus began to drum his fingers on the steering wheel.
With a loud creak, the gate in front lurched and rotated out of the way.
“Take the downward path,” Skyler said. “Nice and easy.”
The vehicle spiraled down a decrepit concrete ramp, descending three levels before reaching the bottom. They rolled to a stop in front of a rusty chain-link fence, illuminated only by the truck’s headlights.
“Engine off please,” Skyler said. “Lights, too.”
Devoid of enthusiasm, Angus complied. The whine of electricity from the motors faded to a stop, leaving them in a silence broken occasionally by dripping water. The only light came from the gauge cluster on the dash.
“Thought there’d be guards,” Angus said.
“Who said there aren’t?” Skyler removed his pistol from its shoulder holster and placed the weapon deliberately on the dash in front of his seat. He turned to his right, nodding calmly at Angus. “Shouldn’t take long,” he said. “Keep your wits about you, eh?”
Angus kept his eyes forward, studying the layout of the room. “You’re going in there alone? Unarmed?”
Skyler nodded and pushed open the passenger door. “Relax. Prumble and I go way back.”
His worn combat boots thumped against the floor as he dropped from the vehicle. Without another word, he slammed the door shut.
Two floodlights mounted high on the walls blinked on, filling the space with a sodium-yellow pall. They hummed like swarms of insects, electricity stressing the antique wiring. Skyler kept his head down, letting his baseball cap shield his eyes from the jarring brightness.
He approached the fence with his arms spread wide, palms open. A narrow gate in the center unlocked with a dull click, and Skyler pushed through it. On the opposite side, he waited. The sodium spotlights clicked off, plunging the area into darkness again.
He heard the slightest scrape of metal and saw a tiny yellow dot on the wall in front of him as a peephole opened.
“What’s your business here?” came a voice.
Skyler fought the urge to laugh. Prumble’s theatrics grew with each visit. “I’m expected. Skyler Luiken.”
“Luke Skywalker?”
“That never gets old,” Skyler growled.
“Ah, sarcasm! The lowest form of wit.”
Skyler smirked, despite himself, and shook his head. “Open the bloody door, Prumble.”
The peephole snapped shut. Skyler looked back at Angus, whose face was drawn in red by the dashboard lights. The kid gripped the steering wheel with one hand, drummed it with the other.
Nearly a minute passed before a brief commotion from beyond the door, as many locks were undone.
Finally the door opened. “Leave your weapons outside.”
Prumble was already snickering when the door slammed shut. “How’s the new guy?” he asked between laughs.
Skyler grinned. “On pins and needles, thanks to you.”
The fat man wore a constant, jovial smile. Despite the cold of the garage, beads of sweat dotted his bald head, and he dabbed them with a white handkerchief. He motioned for Skyler to follow him. “You have a keen eye for people, Skyler.”
“Speak for yourself.” Skyler gestured to the vast space he now stood in. “The vaunted private army of Mr. Prumble.”
Prumble chuckled, the sound echoing through the cavernous garage. “Must keep up appearances, you know. Come, come. I want to hear all about the mission.”
Skyler followed the man, who’d been his fence and friend since the scavenger crews were first given run of the old airport. Prumble required the aid of a cane and he moved at a languid pace through the former parking garage, which served as a warehouse. Random items crowded every available space, many of them procured by Skyler and his crew. They passed organized sections of electronics, weapons, preserved foodstuffs, furniture, containers, clothing … at least fifty sections, organized in a way only Prumble could understand.
“What have you brought me?” Prumble asked.
Skyler rubbed his hands together, then breathed on them. “I always forget to wear gloves when I come here.”
“You’re stalling.”
“I’m cold! Cold … and stalling.”
“Bloody hell,” Prumble said. “Not again.”
“We had it. The exact model you requested. Pristine condition, too.”
“And what? It fell out?”
“Nightcliff ordered us to land,” Skyler said. “When we saw the Elevator vacant—”
“So ignore them, dammit. They wouldn’t shoot you down.”
“Sam said the same thing.”
“You’ve a keen eye for people,” he repeated. “Listen to them once in a while.”
Crestfallen, Skyler spread his hands. “They were spooked. So were we, really. Rioters at the gate, the climbers just sitting there, dark, on the cord. I had to land.”
The big man grumbled a response. He led Skyler to a specially constructed room, retrofitted into the far corner of the underground garage. Skyler recognized the enormous steel door like an old friend. He and Skadz had pulled it off a meat locker in Perth, a decade ago, at Prumble’s request—their first mission for the man.
A keypad on the door served as the lock. “Avert your eyes,” Prumble said as he tapped the numbers. The latch released with a dull thud.
An old oak desk, well worn by time and use, dominated the room. An enormous map of Earth covered one wall, marked with hundreds of colorful thumbtacks.
Every flat surface in the office hid under piles of books and papers. Skyler noted technical manuals and medical texts chief among the stacks. Such items were favorites of Prumble. Small and highly valuable. He would spend hours cataloging them. Skyler took the chair by the door, moving aside some books about home childbirth and midwifing.
Prumble went to the map on the wall. From a box on the shelf below it, he removed a blue thumbtack. Skyler watched in silence as the big man placed the marker just north of Kuala Lumpur. Blue represented a scouted site.
“Any subhumans?” Prumble asked.
“No.”
He took a green tack and placed it next to the blue. “Anything of value still there?”
“Plenty,” Skyler said. “A few trips’ worth.”
A white tack went up.
Satisfied, Prumble lowered himself into a huge suede executive chair behind the wooden desk and dabbed his forehead again. The handkerchief vanished into his coat, replaced by a yellow pencil.
Skyler pulled his own jacket tighter and wrung his hands together to chase the cold away.
“Down to business, then,” Prumble said. His pencil hovered over a thick, leather-bound ledger. “My coveted arc welder is in Blackfield’s hands?”
“Sorry about that,” Skyler said. Part of him wanted the big man to fly into a rage at the news of another failure. Skyler tried to think of something—anything—he could say to redeem himself. Nothing came to mind.
No admonishment came. Instead, Prumble calmly jotted a note in his ledger. “At least when we scavenge for the Orbitals we can factor Nightcliff’s greedy hands into the price. They control the Elevator, and fair’s fair.”
“He doesn’t seem content with that anymore.”
Prumble grunted. “If he’s going to start rummaging through our bread and butter …”
“So he implied,” Skyler said.
The pencil hovered as Prumble digested the statement. “I suppose you did the right thing. Landing, I mean. The way Blackfield is behaving, he may well have shot you down just to send a message to the other crews. The man has become unpredictable.”
“And the climbers?” Skyler asked. “Think that’s a message, too?”
“Yes,” Prumble said, “but not to you.” His face grew sour. “This is all posturing. A power loss, even for just a fraction of a second, is disturbing, sure. But to shut all traffic down for a day? Days? No, he’s thumbing his nose at the Orbitals.”
“Why?”
“Boredom, probably.” Prumble’s pencil moved over the ledger again. “Traffic will resume. They need our air and water; we need their food. There’s no other choice. Right, then. What else did you find?”
From memory, Skyler rattled off the list.
“I can fence the rations and first-aid kits,” Prumble said. “Did you bring them?”
“It’s all in the truck.”
“What else did the bastards take, aside from the welder?”
Skyler recounted the story. In hindsight, it could have been worse. They could have taken everything, even the Melville. He shuddered at the thought. Nightcliff’s odd exclusion from the Orbital Council had left Blackfield beholden only to his own whims. And by all accounts he had whims in abundance.
“For what it’s worth, we found the old man,” Skyler said. “The one the roofers wanted closure on. He was full sub, but tell them he was already dead. Brought back a sample, a finger actually.” He gently set the sleeve on the edge of the desk.
Prumble eyed it. “That’s something. While you were gone I found a hoodwink who can test the DNA. The poor guy doesn’t get much work these days. If the sample matches you might at least break even.”
“Oh,” Skyler said, remembering the stranger. “I also have a letter for you.”
“Now you’re the postman, too?”
Skyler took the memory card from his jacket and tossed it onto Prumble’s desk. “Some bloke in Nightcliff asked me to deliver that. Weird guy. Can’t remember his name, but he knew mine.”
The big man plucked the card with two thick fingers, eyebrows arched. “Kip Osmak,” Prumble said.
“That’s him.”
Prumble stood and crossed to an old safe, the size of a refrigerator, and dialed in the combination. The thick door swung open and he began to rummage through the contents.
Skyler couldn’t help but peek over Prumble’s shoulder. Within the safe he saw an array of high-value items—primarily ammunition. A case of hand grenades. The top shelf was filled with bottles full of seeds, each meticulously labeled.
The big man finally settled on what he was looking for: a yellow envelope. He kicked the safe closed and gave the tumbler a spin before returning to his chair.
Skyler cleared his throat. “Who is this bloke?”
From the envelope, Prumble removed a second memory card and a rigid sheet of white plastic. He set the sheet on his desk and placed both cards in the upper corners. Black text began to fill the programmable “paper.”
“Kip Osmak is a weasel of a man,” Prumble said without looking up. “A well-connected weasel, as it happens.”
“Speak for yourself,” Skyler said.
Prumble ignored the jibe, his gaze dancing across the letter before him. His face lit up as he read.
“What is it?” Skyler asked.
“I may have some work for you.”
Skyler grunted. “I certainly need it. The crew will mutiny if I offer another spec mission.”
Prumble frowned. “Skadz used to run them all the time.”
“His were successful.”
The fat man’s frown grew deeper. “Don’t offer missions, Skyler. Lead them.”
Skyler had no retort for that. He studied his boots instead.
“When was the last time you pillaged in Japan?”
Skyler winced at the choice of words. “Two years, give or take. This better not be a bloody Tokyo mission. Nothing but bad news up there.”
“You have an irrational fear of urban places, my friend.”
“I disagree. It’s quite rational.”
A strange look came across the man’s face. Wistful and childlike. “How I wish I could venture out with you. Get away from this tomb. Darwin, I mean.”
Then he fell silent, his gaze on the wall map. Skyler waited. He could think of nothing to say. Prumble did not have the immunity and so would need a special environment suit to leave the city. Skyler knew of no suit large enough to fit the enormous man.
“Can that ship of yours reach the island without a drop from the Elevator?” Prumble finally asked.
Mentally Skyler calculated the electricity burn. The ship’s ultracapacitors could handle it, but it would take a few days to spool them unless he paid Woon for a feed. The subtext concerned him more: a long-range mission without using the Elevator meant working off Nightcliff’s radar. Given the inspection yesterday, Skyler wondered how easy that would be. “Depends,” he said at last.
“Good answer. Read this.”
Skyler took the plastic sheet and scanned it. “Toenail clippers? It’s amazing how these pricks live.”
Prumble removed a bottle from his desk drawer, along with two glasses. “The interesting bit is on the last page. Care for a drink?”
Skyler nodded. He scanned the entire list:
Titanium-oxide powder—4,200/gram
Seeds (citrus), any type/quantity—100 per seed
Gauze and bandages—negotiable
Zigg ultracapacitors, all sizes—6,000 per
Cartridge filter pack for Aqua-Solve M7 membrane array—17,500
The list went on, for two pages, covering all manner of desired goods. Vitamins, electronic components, chemicals, and so on. A typical list, in Skyler’s judgment. Then he came to the last page:
Prumble,
An anonymous client wishes the following item to be recovered:
—NEO Telemetry Logs (cubeSTOR preferred), Torafuku Observatory, Toyama, Japan. Full set marked 93093xxxxx or 97259xxxxx.—200,000 per set (pending verification)
The amount is not a mistake. Knowledge of this request will be denied by myself and my client should it be confiscated.
If this item is not delivered to me at Clarke’s on 18 January, I will contact other suppliers.
Skyler whistled, took the offered glass, and threw the drink back in one gulp.
“That last was encrypted.”
Skyler felt the alcohol warm his throat and let the sensation fade before talking. “Not fooling around.”
“And time critical,” said Prumble. “Three days, or he shops it elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere meaning Grillo.” Skyler uttered the name of Prumble’s chief competitor like a curse. Grillo ran a crime syndicate that all but ruled Darwin’s eastern slums. He also owned a handful of unscrupulous scavenger crews, using the old football stadium as an air base.
“Grillo, naturally.” He handed Skyler a pencil and a sheet of yellow paper torn from his ledger. “Write it all down.”
While Skyler copied the list, Prumble sipped his own drink.
“It’s risky,” Skyler said. “There might be nothing out there. But the payment …”
Prumble nodded. “Risk and reward.”
“What are these numbers?”
“No idea,” Prumble said. “You know these scientists. They speak their own language.”
“No kidding. And ‘NEO’?”
Prumble shrugged. “The verification bit concerns me. You may retrieve the item, only to have it declined.”
“Still, two hundred thousand in stamped council notes. If this pays off, it more than makes up for the last two outings.”
“Four outings.”
“Well don’t rub it in, damn you.”
Prumble went back to the map on the wall. “And if it doesn’t pay out, certainly your costs will be covered by some of the other items. If you can find them,” Prumble said. “Japan is still fairly ripe. Not many subs, either.”
“Except Tokyo. I’m not going anywhere near that dump again.”
“Fair enough,” said Prumble. He traced a finger over the city of Toyama. “This is hundreds of kilometers from there. Rural. Are we in business?”
“Can you front me the spooling cost? I can’t charge the Mel’s caps fast enough, not without Woon’s reactor coupling.”
Prumble sucked a breath through clenched teeth. “Skadz never asked for that.”
“He had a mind for these things.”
“Had. Past tense,” said Prumble. An uncomfortable silence followed. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought him up. Sure, I’ll float you. An advance against the goods in your truck.”
“Then we’re in business. First thing tomorrow if Nightcliff will clear us.”
Prumble removed a stack of bills from his desk and passed them over. “This cover it?”
After a rough mental estimate, Skyler nodded. He stood and stuffed the money inside his jacket.
“You can let yourself out,” the fat man said. “Be sure to tell your driver about my well-armed guards.”