Plague Planet (The Wandering Engineer) (6 page)

“Sprite?”

“Yes Admiral?”

“What's going on?” he asked as a nearby store slammed its door
shut and the proprietor clicked the lock as he flipped the sign to closed. “Is it
something we did?”

“No Admiral, from the looks of it, everyone is clearing out. Those
two look like they are about to fight,” she replied quietly. Red icons
highlighted a pair of people a hundred meters away.

“Um... Seriously? Where's the law?”

“Hiding,  Admiral, the tall blue one is bad news.”

The admiral studied the tall blue alien. He was fascinating. He
was dressed in western wear, a dusty tan duster, fedora, and what looked like
weapons strapped to each hip. The alien looked up and Irons blinked. He had two
sets of compound eyes, big eyes under that hat. The alien adjusted his hat rim
with one clawed hand while the other pulled the duster wide to expose his
weapons. Irons blinked. He had a pair of smaller true hands on his long torso,
on either side. They were wrapped around the alien's waist with their claws
interlocked above his shiny brass belt buckle. If you didn't know any better
they blended in to his torso under his red vest.

Respirators were on the alien's mouth, two hoses connected the
pair to a small pack on his back.

Irons felt a tug on his arm and looked down. A small black haired
Terran girl was there. “Mister you better clear out. That's Ole Blue and he's
mean!”

“Okay,” Irons replied, letting the girl lead him on. They ducked
between buildings where a knot of people were nervously waiting. The girl's
mother grabbed the child and nodded to him. “You new here?” she asked.

“Very,” Irons replied.

“Thought so from your clothes. It's not neighborly to let you get
shot your first day or so being here.”

“They're that bad of shots? What about the law?”

“No one goes up against Ole Blue. No one dares,” the woman said
and shivered. They could hear the steady tink, tink and foot falls as Blue's
opponent walked on. Irons looked at him. It was a Terran, Spanish stock, with a
bit of gut under the soiled green poncho. He had a hat on his back. He was
sweating profusely, with spittle dribbling from his unshaven chin. From the
sound of it, the guy was babbling on and on, possibly praying. His hands were
together as if he was at any rate.

“He's a dead man,” the girl said, watching the human coldly.
“Estupido,” she said and spat in his direction.

Irons turned to the man and the alien. “Can't anyone stop it?”

“And go up against Ole Blue? He's an assassin. Paid hit man.
Sometimes he kills for the fun of it,” the woman said nervously, holding her
children closer to her. A man nearby nodded. He looked as pale as a ghost
despite his tan.

“I can stop it,” Irons vowed. He felt a hand on his arm. He looked
over to see a nervous deputy there.

“Don't mister. There is nothing you can do. Ole Blue is a black
hole. This guy's a deader surer than shit,” he said.

Irons blinked at him in shock, a cop saying that... He missed what
was said when the Spanish man stopped. Irons turned to see the man turn slowly
and gulp. He brushed his poncho back, still shaking like a leaf.

“Are you ready to meet your maker Terran?” a raspy voice
chittered. Irons blinked. The high end sounded Veraxin.

“Por favor, I meant no harm,” the man blubbered, hands up.

“You know the deal,” the alien barked. “My babies are hungry,” he
said.

The man's eyes went wide. Instead of drawing he turned to run. Ole
Blue's true hands flashed and a round slammed into the man's back. He fell into
the dust and writhed. Irons blinked as a warning tone sounded in his implants
and then the AI flashed a bio-hazard sign over the quickly dissolving man.
“What the hell? Nanites?”

“Yes Admiral, Gobblers,” Sprite informed him.

Irons scowled. “They're highly illegal!”

“Tell him that,” the deputy said. “Anyone who protests ends up
like that,” the man said, gulping nervously and nodding his chin to the
bubbling mass on the ground. They could hear a steady click click and footsteps
as the alien walked up to the corpse. He stood over it, staring down at it
without pity or remorse.

“Pitiful,” the alien said, shaking his head.

“What the hell is he?” Irons asked quietly. He wasn't any alien
species he recognized.

“Veraxin admiral,” Sprite informed him.

“You're kidding me!”

“Gene-formed. Or reformed. He's an augment.” She posted the
alien's image onto his HUD minus the clothes.

“That's rude,” the alien said, turning to face Irons. “Scanning me
like that. And talking about me behind my back? Tisk tisk,” he said. Irons
realized he wasn't completely sane. “You have a problem?”

“Gobblers?” Irons demanded, standing straight. “Who doesn't?” He
demanded, feeling the people behind him move hastily away. Sprite flashed a
warning image; Ole Blue was a member of the assassin's guild, one from his era.
One of the number one assassins in the explored galaxy and feared by just about
everyone.

“These?” the alien turned back to his prey. He touched something
on his belt; a signal controller Irons summarized when he noted the nanites
stopped and then started to swirl around the alien. After a moment he held out
his hand and a new round formed in his hand. “These are my babies,” he said and
cackled.

“Spirit of space,” the deputy said softly, looking at the shallow
hole where the man once was. “Nothing left to bury.”

“Dust to dust,” the alien said, turning and flaring his duster to
walk off. “Be seeing you around,” he said casually.

“You are a dead man if he does,” the woman said, pulling away from
Irons.

“No,
he
is,” Irons replied, looking at the alien coldly.

...*...*...*...*...

“Still having issues Admiral?” Sprite asked, sounding entirely too
amused for his taste.

“In this project, a bit Commander,” Irons sighed sitting back. One
of the biggest problems on any terraformed world was the lack of fossil fuels.
They weren't just used for vehicle fuel, but also heating oil, lubrication,
plastics, tars, and of course activated charcoal.

Activated charcoal, or activated carbon as it was also known was
one of the simplest methods of filtration. Filtration was needed in everything
from water to chemicals for industrial and medical purposes.  Planets that had
been recently terraformed didn't have any fossil fuels, and they did have plant
material but not in any great supply for at least a century. That was why many
startups had trouble. Balancing the need for this basic substance was a
headache for many a colony leader. Without it you couldn't filter water for
ships either, which was why most colony worlds didn't. He now understood that.

Importing had been a major answer for many colonies for the past
seven centuries. Or find a nice Carbon Chloride asteroid and mine the heck out
of it. Or, if you planned it properly, a couple of Carbon Chloride asteroids
could be used during the terraforming of the planet. Their remains could be mined
for their carbon and other resources.

Most of this had been used up on Epsilon over the centuries. No
one had known about reactivation of the carbon by recycling it through a hot
furnace, so it had been dumped. They were now suffering a shortage. Areas that
didn't have access to carbon either made due without and suffered, or they used
paper or some other filtration method... with varying degrees of success.

Now, nearly eight hundred years after the colony had been founded,
their plants had taken sufficient root to be able to generate local sources of
carbon. Irons pointed out to a local lumber mill that they could one use the
stumps , shavings, and wood chips for fuel or compressed material, or they
could two, pyrolysis the material, that is carbonize it in a nitrogen or argon
furnace around six hundred to nine hundred degrees C.

Chemical activation was also a possibility, it was certainly
quicker and required lower temperatures, but the materials were mostly acids
that leached the water content out of the plant material and were therefore
troublesome to handle, store, and dispose of properly.

The lumber mill in New Seattle had settled on using pyrolyzing,
but they required a source of argon or nitrogen. He could synthesize the
nitrogen with an atmospheric convertor, but they also needed a more efficient
kiln system. Which was one of the reasons he was here in Hazard. He'd hoped to
do some horse trading with Hodges and Io 11, but that seemed out, the fat
commissioner was apparently uninterested. He'd have to move on and see if
locals in the foundry cities like New Chicago or Gotham were up to the task.

“You should let me deal with the negotiations Admiral, I'm good at
it,” Sprite admonished.

“Yes, but I was hoping to keep you under wraps a bit longer,” Irons
replied. “The more people know about you the more...” he bit off the rest of
what he was going to say.

“The more trouble I'm worth?” Sprite asked, sounding amused again.

“Something like that,” he admitted.

“Well, I don't have any networks to plunder so I'm getting rather
bored,” she said dryly.

“Fine, fine, you handle the details then Commander, I'll look into
a better kiln design.”

“Gee, thanks,” Sprite replied.

...*...*...*...*...

Near dark Irons left his room to get a meal. He paused as he
stepped out onto the strip, he turned at the sound of a large group of people
and noted them hustling a man up the street. They were cat calling and waving
torches and clubs in their hands. Many were grim. It was a mob, he realized, a
lynch mob. “What's going on?” Irons asked cautiously.

“Frontier justice at its finest admiral,” Sprite informed him as
several people passed him in their haste to join the mob. “And in any group of
this size boardom will have most of the population  flocking to join it.”

“Oh,” he stepped aside as a woman brushed him with the back of her
hand. She curtsied slightly and kept going on her way. He watched her go. “Dare
I ask what he did?” he asked.

“He
allegedly
raped a prostitute.”

“Okay,” Irons said, eyes hard as he studied the scene. There was a
preacher nearby giving last rights. Another man was near, grimly watching over
the proceedings. Irons recognized him as a judge from the black robe. He noted
the black hat and shiny star of a law enforcement officer in the crowd around
the accused. Another group further down the street were setting up a rope over
a limb and open flatbed under it. After a long moment Irons turned away.

“Aren't you going to
do
something?” Sprite demanded as he
walked.

“Nope,” he drawled, still walking. He didn't bother looking back.

“Admiral, it's a miscarriage of justice! They aren't upset about
the woman they are upset about him not
paying
her pimp! A dead beat. A
dead, dead beat in a minute!”

“Not my problem,” he said firmly, walking on.

“As an officer...”

He paused, noting no one was around. “The only people who are
authorized to intervene are right there going along with it. There's a law
enforcement officer right there as well as the judge. The guy in the black
robe.”

“You have got to be kidding me!” Sprite replied in exasperation.

“Nope, thats how it's done here Sprite. I'm sure he did something
else. They're pretty pissed,” Irons said as the group got to the tree.

“You could save him....”

“Save a man accused of raping a woman? Aren't you the one who
reminded me about tilting at windmills and trying to keep a clean public
appearance?” he asked.

“Touché'” Sprite replied with a sigh.

“I know it sucks, but it's the best justice around apparently.
Even if it is at the end of a rope,” he said, glancing over his shoulder to see
the man standing on the flatbed with the noose around his neck.

...*...*...*...*...

The next morning Irons explored more of the planet using a map and
a database Sprite had built up. Ring City in the south seemed like a tourist
trap. Sprite had teased him about the various events and rides there. The flume
and power station sounded interesting, but he was definitely not interested in
the hot air balloons.

Some of the tropical resort communities west of the city seemed
nice, most were into logging, growing a few tropical plants for export,
sugarcane, and other forms of farming, nice, but not his area at all. He'd
prefer to stay north of the equator and near the industrial centers. That was
where the action was as far as he was concerned.

He was still having trouble with getting the fuel, and getting
this sorted out in Hazard was a clear case of hurry up and wait. He'd tried
tracking down the fuel trucks but he had yet to pin them down, and their office
was a shell company, an empty office in the center of Hazard. It was very
annoying. It was even more annoying that he'd wasted all morning trying to
chase down the damn owners of the company. On Sprite's advice he'd even gone to
the city hall records building to try to get to the owners, only to be turned
away with ever so exquisite courtesy. He'd never heard someone say so politely
to get lost in his life, at least not until now.