Pursue the Past: Samair in Argos: Book 1 (58 page)

              The people here on Yullankla weren’t poor, but the standard of living was lower than she was used to.  The factories were employing a great number of people, but the hours were long and the pay apparently wasn’t great.  Families were out in the streets, enjoying the evening, it seemed.  There were also a great number of people sitting in doorways, doing nothing.  Tamara had read up on the planet and had asked the Captain as well as others about the people and the way of life down here.  They had told her that it was an industrial world, one that was just truly getting into a true revolution from an agricultural society to an industrial one.  Manufacturing was growing at an exponential rate and employed an ever growing number of workers.  However, as the markets for such industry slowed, progress did as well, meaning that there were slowdowns in the factories and layoffs until the production picked up again.  The ships that would come into the system were a great boon, buying significant numbers of processed parts and machinery and for a time, the factories would be running full blast.  But that would stop again once the ships moved on and the slowdowns would happen again. 
Grania Estelle
, significantly larger than most of the ships that came through this system, was filling her empty cargo holds with engines that could be used in ground cars, farm equipment, and massive containers of parts and other machined items made here.  The factories were up and running again to fill the demand, of which these items would be sold in neighboring systems, who in turn would have ships come back here with things to sell and buy more. 

              But in the meantime, the people would be in a state of economic depression once the slowdowns began again.  It seemed that most of the people they passed as they drove were either not working today or perhaps had already gotten off shift.  As they continued on, however, they moved into what looked more like a residential area rather than commercial and even more people were in the streets, mostly human, though there were a smattering of aliens as well.  Tamara saw a few zheen, lupusan, a pair of jackal headed Anubises, catlike Severites, even a Fovorian.  They too were either walking around, or sitting around on porches or on steps.  And everywhere she looked, Tamara saw beings with cups in their hands.  She assumed more than a few of them had alcohol in those cups, but perhaps not
all
. 

              There was a sullen look on a great deal of the faces as the car rumbled by.  Corajen was forced to slow the car’s pace to a crawl to avoid running people over, but Tamara noted that very few of the pedestrians truly seemed to care that a car was driving down the road.  Many of them seemed to be of the opinion that since they were walking, the car would stop for them and thus showed no urgency to get out of the way of a two-ton vehicle bearing down on them.  More than once, the lupusan was forced to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting someone.  The people didn’t seem angry by this; there wasn’t an angry mob, it was just a general malaise that seemed to permeate everything and everyone.

              “I’m seeing a lot of guns,” Taja suddenly said, which got the attention of the other two. 

              “Yeah,” Corajen replied.  “Me too, and I don’t like it.”

              Tamara blinked in surprised.  She hadn’t really noticed before, but now that Taja had pointed it out, she saw it too.  And they were
everywhere
.  The groups of people she could see all had weapons.  She could see pistols and pulsers, assault rifles, shotguns.  These were carried by people who looked as though they had used them before with (probably) varying degrees of skill.  Even the younglings carried guns.  Tamara saw a trio of teenage zheen walking by, one of them had a pistol tucked into the waistband of his trousers.

              “Even the kids,” Tamara said, a bit sad.  “Any idea why?”

              Corajen didn’t answer, but Taja spoke up.  “I’m not sure.  I know that pirates were here about a decade or so ago and there was a civil war.  I think the pirates were in league with the people in charge of the cities and the citizens revolted.  Incoming cargo ships brought in weapons and supplied both sides.  From what I got from the locals, the fighting was pretty nasty.  Took about four years to eject the pirates from power.  That was six years ago.”

              “Did they force the pirates to leave?”

              “No, I think they killed them all, eventually,” Taja replied.  “Mostly in the fighting, and the rest in the subsequent trials and execution.”

              “War crimes?” Tamara guessed.

              Taja nodded, still looking out the windshield.  “Most likely.  Crimes against life too, for incidents that occurred before the civil war started, I would imagine.”

              “Pirates implies they had ships,” Tamara mused aloud.  “Were they destroyed in the fighting?”

              Taja shrugged, glancing back.  “I don’t know.  They didn’t have any ships in orbit or at the landing pad when we were there.  They might be trying to hide them from us, I suppose.  But more likely you’re right, they were probably either destroyed or damaged beyond their ability to repair at this time.”  She pursed her lips as she turned back around.  “I would imagine they stripped out the ships for anything they could salvage and then began reverse engineering anything they could.  Probably why they’re having something of a renaissance with their industry right now.”

              “Well, I think that’s partly true,” Tamara conceded, looking at the crowd of people walking along the sidewalks and lounging around.

              “How much farther?” Corajen asked.

              “You’re driving,” the cargo specialist replied with a smirk.

              “Yes, but you’re navigating,” she pointed out.

              “Just around this corner,” Taja said, pointing.

              Corajen maneuvered them around the corner and parked in front of the building.  There were about fifteen people within easy reach as they all got out.  Taja pulled a bag over one shoulder, adjusting it to a more comfortable position.  “Should someone stay with the car?” Tamara asked.

              Taja shrugged, walking with complete confidence to the door of the shop.  Tamara sighed and followed.  Corajen turned to sweep her gaze over the crowd of people ambling around.  No one was particularly interested in her, nor in her vehicle.  She wasn’t trying to be menacing and draw attention to herself.  Shaking her head, telling herself this was a mistake, the lupusan female followed her companions inside.

              The shop was a dilapidated two-story gray brick building, very similar to all the others around it, up and down the street.  It also had a small two car and two story garage attached next door, but the steel door was closed and presumably latched.  No one touched the door.  The front door was made of steel and it closed behind the three as they entered.

              The inside of the shop was crowded with merchandise.  It wasn’t especially clean, and it was cluttered with all sorts of items; some of them were weapons, but most of them were just random bits of junk.  The shop itself was rather narrow, with a clear space barely wide enough for Corajen to squeeze her broad frame through the stacks.  The shop was dimly lit by a series of fluorescent light bulbs that lined the clear area, though the one closest to the door was flickering erratically.  It had a faint odor (to Tamara’s and Taja’s noses) of rust and machine oil.  Corajen, meanwhile, wrinkled her snout, but otherwise made no indication that she was displeased by the odor. 

              Taja led them to the back, where sat a desk with another steel door blocking access to the next room.  Above the desk was a sheet of armor glass, stained nearly opaque with fingerprints, noseprints, and even what looked like a perfect print of someone’s foot.  All three women were slightly disgusted by this, but they did not break stride.  Walking straight up to the armor glass window, Taja pressed the bell which was on the small counter jutting out from the glass.  The other two women flanked the cargo specialist.

              “Yes, yes, how can I assist you, friends?” a male voice came from the other side of the glass.  The other side of the glass was darkened, which along with the smudged glass made it difficult to see who was behind it.  They could see a shadowy figure behind the glass, but were unable to make out who it was.

              Or rather, two of them couldn’t.  Tamara’s visual implants activated, where she allowed a scan of the silhouette to be done, and the implants did their best to lighten up the frozen image, which was then beamed to her datapad.  She picked it up from the holster on her hip and checked it.  On the screen was the image of the… person behind the armor glass.  Her implants had to extrapolate his actual shade and coloration, and she thought they did a reasonable job of it.  The creature behind the glass was not human.  He was a short, feline like creature called a Severite.  He was a little over four feet in height, though he must be on some sort of riser or a chair on the other side of the glass.  His body was covered with a brindled gray and brown fur, which was streaked with white, indicating his age.  His eyes were jade and he had long whiskers protruding out from the sides of his face.  One of his catlike ears was torn, as though it had been ripped away by something with sharp teeth.  He appraised the three females in his shop and smiled, showing yellowing fangs, slightly blunted.  The picture only caught him from the waist up, so she could only see that he was wearing a weathered brown vest, festooned with pockets.

              “We’re here looking to buy some product,” Taja began.  At Tamara’s soft cough, she looked back, and glanced at the image on her datapad.  She nodded and looked back, as Tamara showed the image to Corajen, who didn’t react, just flicked her gaze down and then back to the proprietor.

              “Oh, yes, yes, pretty lady,” he drawled.  “Anything in particular?”

              “I have a list.  Depending on your inventory, I might be prepared to place a large order.”

              “I see, yes, yes, pretty lady.  And how will you be paying?”

              Taja shrugged.  “I have various methods of payment.  Gold specie, Far Genevielle ducaries, or Republic credits, whichever you prefer.”

              “You have these with you, yes, yes?”

              She gave him a look.  “My friend, do I look like I’m carrying wads of bills, or piles of credit chits on me?”

              He paused.  “No, no, pretty lady, you do not.  No money, I cannot sell.  Not even to a pretty lady.”  His face, so much like the domestic felines on numerous worlds, didn’t have the facial musculature to show much in the way of emotion.  But the flattening of his ears and the slow blinks he gave displayed all the emotion a human face could.

              Taja turned to her companions, then looked back and sighed.  Opening the flap on her bag, she pulled out a bundle of paper bills: Far Genevielle ducaries.  All of them could see his eyes widen in anticipation and Tamara could even see the tip of his tongue lick the edges of his mouth.

              “The pretty lady doesn’t always speak the truth, no, no,” the proprietor said.  “I will show you my stock.”  He leaned over and pressed a button.  There was a buzz and Corajen moved over and pushed the door open.  She led the way inside, instantly wary for some sort of trick or ambush, but there was none.

              Seeing him up close, they all noted that he wasn’t especially clean.  His fur was matted in places and as he hopped down from his stool, they could see that his tail appeared to have been broken in two places, as it hung at a crazy angle.  He wasn’t wearing shoes, which wasn’t a surprise, but he, like Corajen, was wearing a kilt that came to his knees, though his was a faded orange which had clearly seen better days.  “Come, come, pretty lady, bring your friends, yes, yes,” he said, with his strange drawl.  He led them into the back area, where three other Severites were standing, all of them armed with assault rifles, though none of them were pointed at the newcomers.  In this room were racks and racks of rifles, stacks of ammunition, crates of other things, weapons unseen.

              Tamara kept an eye on their hosts, while the other two ladies walked among the merchandise, picking up a few things, checking on them.  Corajen hefted a rifle, pulling back the bolt, checking the chamber, and sighting down the barrel.  Taja checked out a pair of pistols, feeling the weight, checking the slides, seeing how well maintained they were. 

              The weapons they inspected were in varying states of repair, though all the ones they looked at could be brought up to snuff with a little care.  In the end they decided on a dozen assault rifles, twice as many hand weapons, and several thousand rounds of ammunition.  Then it came time for the haggling. 

              “Yes, yes, pretty ladies decide what they want?” the proprietor asked.  They had never asked his name, nor had he decided to give it.  He didn’t ask their names and that suited everyone just fine. 

              “Yes, my friend, I think we have,” Taja said, crossing her arms over her chest.  “Now, I’m thinking for all these…”  She bobbed her head back and forth, considering.  “Four thousand ducaries.”

              “Four thousand?” the little Severite screeched.  “No, no, pretty lady will bankrupt me!  I can go no lower than eight thousand, no, no.”

              “Eight?” Taja declared.  “That’s too much, my friend.  I may as well let you bend me over the counter and take me!”