God's Bounty Hunter (Biddy Mackay Space Detective Book 1) Page 5

  “Let me introduce Augment A: known as Tolly. He’s a big celebrity, as far as the Gods go. Even the Knights seem to kind of respect him. Currently working in the Earthen solar system. Brokering a peace treaty on Mars, according to about forty independent testimonies the Geek found on the cloud.”

  “So not our guy.”

  “No. Augment B: he’s unaccounted for, so could be the one we’re looking for. Only problem is this guy was in the radiation fallout on Saturn about fifty years ago. Even an Augment would be long dead. The Knights reckon there’s a chance he might be still alive, but he’d be pretty much a vegetable by now. I’ve seen some of the pictures of the guys who survived Saturn. They looked like they’d been in the furnaces of hell. Someone would have mentioned an Augment with a burned up face.”

  “Not him?”

  “Can’t rule him out, but no, I don’t think so. And here’s Augment C: This guy is a real gem. The Knights reckon he’s a smuggler, but not the kind that trades in dodgy starship fuel. A high-end smuggler, managing gangs from Mars to Alpha Centauri. Smuggling people, mainly kids for the dodgier mining colonies. Not the sort of person you’d like to cross. And a few years ago he dropped off the map. Could coincide with a spell in detainment.”

  “You think Augment C is our guy?”

  “Our most likely suspect, yes. If we assume the Knight’s list is definitive then he’s the only one that fits the bill. But it’s important not to go for the easiest path. Augments have been around for centuries. We could be looking for one that’s not even on the Knight’s radar.”

  “All right.” Kenzie chewed at her thumbnail. “What’s next.”

  “One more point before we move on,” Biddy said holding up her hand. “Interestingly, there are six listed female Augments, whereabouts unknown. I’ve put them all in a ‘possible collaborators’ column.”

  “Why?”

  “Our guy escaped from prison by jumping from a roof onto a drone. There’s no way he arranged all that from his cell. He had help from somewhere, and who better to help a God than a Goddess.”

  “Right.”

  Biddy sighed. “But just now we simply don’t have time to look into all the other Augments. We’ve got to focus on our guy.”

  “Augment C.”

  “It’s a good a name as any. And as the Knights have barely any info on him, let’s look at what we do know.” Biddy pointed at another monitor. “Here’s all the details of his escape from Widdershins 3.”

  “What was he doing there?”

  “Good question. Our plastic friend didn’t seem to want to tell us who put him in the prison. But the Geek took a look at the records of the facility for me. Or what passed for records. People come and go in this place, but half of them don’t even have names. It’s a scary place. You turn up and disappear for a decade or two.”

  “Who runs it?”

  “Another unknown. There’s a company name: UTU. No idea what it stands for, the Widdershins 3 cloud system didn’t have any more than the name. There’s links to the trade alliances, but nothing concrete. I’m going to get the Geek to concentrate on this. I reckon when we find out who imprisoned him we might get a good idea of why our Augment escaped.”

  Kenzie stifled a yawn and Biddy realized how late it was. “Well, maybe that’s enough for now. I’d like you to start doing some research in your downtime.”

  “What kind of research?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll cover the main areas, but I’d like you to use your instincts. Go for any off the wall theory you might come across. All intel is good intel. Especially in this case when we’re still wandering around in the fog.”

  “Right.”

  Biddy waited until Kenzie had left before turning back to the screens. She could have given the girl a little more guidance, but she needed crew members that could think for themselves. Kenzie was promising, but untested. Well, this mission was certainly going to take care of that.

  One week until they reached the Fuller system. Long enough for her to read all the information that filled her screens but would it be long enough to make any sense of it?

  Chapter 10

  The Fuller system. A miner’s dream. Each planet rich in minerals and precious metals and totally devoid of life forms. It had been one of the first discovered in the years following Fast Light. And people had fought wars over it for a hundred years. Lu Tang had even fought in a few of them. The scars of those battles cratered the surface of the planets. Not that that mattered any more. Hell, it probably made it easier for the miners to dig if half the work had been done for them by a uranium bomb.

  It was peaceful now, or so they said. Each planet was run by a different gang, or government as they now liked to call themselves. Well, Lu Tang had seen war and he’d seen peace, and he knew that for the people working in the dark hells of the mines that there was little difference between the two states.

  “Which one, Sir?” The Navigator asked. He looked nervous, as did the rest of the crew. They had been on Riker: they knew what mining colonies were like. Mining planets now, they were another matter. An entire world given over to the pursuit of riches.

  And yet... where there was humanity there was always something more than the pure pursuit of capital gain. Miners had families, children to feed. So on each planet a semblance of society had sprung up, school and houses and bars and brothels. Everything a modern civilization needed to continue the putrid human race.

  “Sir?”

  “We’re going to the fourth planet from the second sun. We’re going to Eritree.”

  The men looked relieved.

  “That’s an automated colony, isn’t it?” One of the engineers asked, a young girl with scars on her wrists.

  “That’s right, the mines are automated. But the planet still has a few people living there. If you check the screen you’ll see a city at the Northern pole. Head for there.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The Augment felt a shiver of apprehension slide up his back. If the crew of the ship thought that an automated mine would mean less exploitation then they were about to get a rude awakening. The wealth of Eritree had attracted a newer, harder kind of criminal. They may not be the gangs that run the other mines which chains and fists. Instead, they wore the latest fashions and partook of the trendiest drugs, but underneath it all they were the worst kind of humans. The ones that lived off the misery of others.

  None of this had mattered one bit to Lu Tang at first. Humans were always cruel to other humans. If you tried to intervene you would go mad. But then the professional criminals had come for the Augments. Lu Tang could not stand for that.

  But today was not the day for revenge. He had a different mission.

  “Coming into orbit of the planet,” the Navigator announced. Lu Tang checked over the automated landing systems and was satisfied. The ship might have been old, but the systems were solid enough.

  “We’ll stay in orbit for now,” Lu Tang said, pressing the relevant buttons. He put the ship in a holding orbit around the planet’s only city.

  The city was once called New Moscov, but since Lu Tang had last been there it had lost the ‘New’. Moscov had a population of just under a thousand. Not many people were required to man the automated mines.

  When Eritree was first colonized it looked like no one would ever need human miners again. They had perfected the robotic workers so that all the problems that previous generations of machines had faced had been overcome. But beyond that small grey planet everywhere else had gone back to humans for one simple reason. They were cheap.

  And expendable. And, through a process that Augments had abandoned long ago, self-replicating. To design that sort of AI had always been a complex and expensive task.

  Eritree was a success but only because of what they mined. Along with platinum and other metals, they also mined the osmium alloys, only found in large quantities in planets of this region. It also just happened to be a vital component in every Fast Light engine.


  These alloys were buried very deep in extraordinarily hard rock. That’s what made the robotic miners so vital to the work. No human miner would have been able to work in those conditions. Of course, they couldn’t really work for long in the other mines either, but that didn’t stop the attraction of cheap labor.

  “I need to make a call.”

  Of course, it would be usual for the call to Eritree’s command center to be made from the control room. But Lu Tang didn’t want to be overheard. He returned to his war room and placed a call from his datapad.

  “Pilot of the J class trading vessel…” What was the ship’s name again? Lu Tang tapped at his datapad. “Pilot of the… Furious Endeavour, really? Idiot humans. Pilot of the Furious Endeavour requesting a landing slot at the Moscov space port.”

  “Landing documents will be required Furious Endeavour.”

  “Patching them through right now.” A quick swipe of the datapad and he was done.

  “We will examine the documents and get back to you with a landing time.”

  “I also request a private call to be put through to a member of the security team.”

  There was a brief pause. “That is unusual.”

  “Yes. I have a fragile cargo that I would like assistance with.”

  Another pause. “You will pay the appropriate customs charges?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then I will contact security for you.”

  “I was told to speak to Tibo Fulstaff.”

  “Mr. Fulstaff is on another call. Perhaps I –”

  “Tell him that Mr. Tang is calling.”

  “Very well. Hold please.”

  Some annoying pastel-jazz played over the speaker for a few moments.

  “Mr. Tang?” A round face appeared on the datapad.

  “Tibo.”

  The face came closer, then startled backwards in dismay. “It’s you!”

  “And on a public line,” Lu Tang said with an edge to his voice. “I am orbiting your planet as we speak. I assume you are prepared for our meeting?”

  “Well… I wasn’t expecting you quite this soon.”

  Lu Tang sniffed. No doubt Tibo had been hoping he wouldn’t make it at all. “Well, here I am.”

  “And you will want to stay for…?”

  “As long as I wish.”

  “Of course. What craft are you arriving in?”

  “The Furious Endeavour. And no, I did not pick the name.”

  “A trading ship?” Tibo wrinkled his nose. He had always been a terrible snob.

  “As you can imagine I had to take what I could get.”

  “Well, we can do better than that. I’ll send over my newest vessel.”

  “The spaceyacht?”

  “That was ten years ago. No, I’ve got something much better now. Pick you up in an hour.”

  Satisfied, Lu Tang ended the call. Tibo was about as trustworthy as the quicksand of Neptune, but at least he knew what would happen if he crossed an Augment. He could be relied upon, for the moment at least.

  Lu Tang made his way to the control room and told the crew of his imminent departure.

  “But I thought we were going down to the planet?” The young engineer whined at him.

  “My plans have changed. You may still take the ship to the landing and acquire another owner.”

  “You’re just going to leave us here?”

  Lu Tang nodded. They were alive, and they should be grateful for the fact. Sure, their odds of survival were not good, but then life was never easy. It certainly never had been for Lu Tang, so why should it be for anyone else?

  “You shouldn’t have a problem finding another hire. Just avoid the gangs, the Eritrees and probably the bounty hunters. People smugglers might give you a good price, just make sure they’re only paying for the ship.” They could hardly complain at that, Lu Tang thought as he walked away without a second glance. Human beings were so needy. It made his brain itch.

  Chapter 11

  The Fuller system consisted of three linked solar systems given over entirely to mining. Biddy Mackay had never wanted to visit, but life had a funny way of taking her exactly where she didn’t want to be. It was the mining planets that put her off. Whether it was growing up with older members of the Clan talking about the underground cities on Tirnanog or the hollow faced miners she met when travelling around the galaxy, it was a way of life that gave her the shivers. She had never walked upon the Earth, but somehow deep in her bones she knew that human beings were meant to be able to see the Sun. Or a sun at least. Not to be trapped underground deep in the dark.

  A week had passed since they left Eris and when the Black Maria had cruised out of Fast Light and entered the Fuller system Biddy felt her heart sink. She had spent most of the last week huddled in front of flickering screens, trying to work out what the hell was going on with the case. But the hoped-for illumination had never come. She couldn’t help but feel that she was going in blind, just like a miner in a perilous cavern.

  Her stomach did the familiar flip that indicated the Fast Light portion of the engines had been shut down. No one quite understood why interstellar travel made human beings feel sick, but it did it every time. Biddy popped a couple of antiemetics and gripped onto the edge of her sleep pod until her muscles stopped cramping. Time to stop brooding and get to work.

  “All crew briefing in fifteen,” Biddy announced over the radio. By the time she made her own way to the meeting room half of the crew were already there, the others arriving on slightly wobbly legs.

  “You okay, Kenzie?” The young blond girl looked like she might throw up at any moment. Her face was coated with clammy sweat.

  Biddy glanced at Francesca who nodded and grabbed the girl a glass of water and a multicolored collection of pills. Kenzie swallowed the drugs, then sipped the water slowly. Biddy felt a pang of guilt. There were good reasons why interstellar travel was so highly regulated. Even the older members of the crew who were more used to Fast Light looked tired and drawn. Well, they wouldn’t have much time to recover, so they might as well get on with it.

  “We’ve arrived at the Fuller system,” Biddy said once the last stragglers had arrived. Elvis strode into the room looking like he’d just been for a light jog, beaming with health and strength. Bastard. Biddy tried not to care that she looked like death warmed up.

  “I know everyone is feeling terrible, make sure you all take your meds. We need to be on top of our game in around eight hours, is that right Hastings?”

  The Captain nodded. “We received a message from Scotclan. We’ve got to head to the second planet, Pratchett Cinque, to meet our observer.”

  There was an unhappy murmur from the crew.

  “I know,” Biddy said, “I’m not exactly thrilled about it either, but we’ll deal with the observer when we have to. One thing at a time. How is the ship doing, Elvis?”

  The engineer whistled through his teeth. “Well, as you might imagine, there’s been more faults than usual due to us not having the interstellar break. But what with the rhodium from your plastic friend, it’s not holding up too badly. It’s necessary to get her into a repair station before we leave this system though. Otherwise you’re risking a major problem before we’re next at the maintenance hub.”

  “Noted. Now, as you most of you know I’ve spent the last week going through the case notes for this mission. Kenzie has been helping me find out everything we could about the Augment.”

  Biddy waved her hand towards the girl and she stood up. Those pills Francesca gave her must have been good, because some color had already returned to her cheeks.

  “At first, we didn’t really know anything about him other than what the avatar told us. We still don’t have a name for him, although he might have a history of people smuggling. We do know that this Augment escaped from Widdershins 3 on the 1st of March, earth calendar. The Westward Ho! came down two weeks later.”

  Everyone in the room avoided meeting Hasting’s eyes.

  K
enzie cleared her throat. “No one seems sure how the Augment sabotaged the ship, but it is clear that our client’s men were about to catch up with him. After that they lost him.”

  “But you found him, right?” Hastings asked right on cue.

  “I think so,” Biddy replied. She brought up a star chart showing all the systems between Earth and the Fuller system. “The plastic man told us he was headed for Fuller. We’ve got a trace on a possible suspect named Lu Tang who appeared on a starfreighter last week. He left the starfreighter and then the trail goes cold, but he was just a few AUs from Fuller two days ago.”

  Phil raised a hand. “What I don’t get is why the client needs us if he knew that the mark was heading for Fuller anyway. I mean, it’s not really a Scotclan job, is it?”

  Biddy was already nodding. “Absolutely. That’s why I’ve had the Geek looking into our client. You there, Geek?”

  A viewscreen at one end of the room clicked on, giving a close-up of a shock of mousy brown hair.

  “Here,” the Geek grunted.

  “Adjust your bloody camera,” Hastings said with more than a trace of impatience. He had never been as indulgent of their young crew member as Biddy was.

  The viewscreen zoomed out to show the Geek’s scowling face. “That better?”

  “Yes, thank you,” Biddy said, with a warning glance at Hastings. “Can you tell us what you found out about the plastic man?”

  “The avatar was sent by a businessman named ML Ito. He operates out of one of the luxury modular stations surrounding Earth Sat 7. I had to get through a lot of cloud security and false trails to find that out, so he didn’t want to be found.”

  “Sat 7? Lots of money then,” Francesca noted. “Those pods don’t come cheap.”

  “And where does Ito get his money from?” Biddy asked.

  The Geek shrugged. “Even I couldn’t get into his private banking. That’s run on the local Martian servers. Same place all the serious crime guys keep their money.”

  “But you did find out something for me, right?”