The Burning Dark (27 page)

“What in the name of Satan’s tits are we doing here, Zia? We’ve come a hell of a long way on some spotty numbers. What if it’s the starlight fucking with our instruments?”

“You’ll get your cut.”

“Oh, really? And what if there’s nothing there? What if there’s nothing shiny and gold at the end of your spectrograph?”

“Go and help Ivanhoe.”

“Are you even listening to me?”

Zia leaned forward quickly, her expression tight, and when she spoke her voice was low and quiet. “If there’s nothing there, I’ll damn well pay you anyway. How does that sound, peaches?”

Everyone at the table looked at Dathan. He’d stopped rocking the dinner tray but his fingers were pressed against the rim, holding it up at an angle of several degrees. Dathan hesitated, perhaps aware that he’d pushed too far and the personal argument had become public. He sighed and let the tray drop with a crash. In the next few seconds, the only sound was Fathead chewing wetly on his chicken cube.

Then Dathan pushed his chair back and left the canteen without a word. Fathead was the only one who moved, turning to watch his fellow crewman walk out the door. Then he turned back to the table, grinning like this was the best night out ever.

“He always like that?” Carter finally broke the game of statues, reaching for another container of food cubes.

Zia’s enigmatic smile reappeared. Ida was sure she’d been staring at him again. If only she’d take off the goggles. Ida felt that he’d not really even met Zia Hollywood yet. He was spending all his time talking to his own reflection.

Zia nodded, then tipped her drained beaker toward Fathead. The crewman reached down to a shoulder bag sitting at his feet. From it he extracted a tall, thin red bottle. It was elegant, expensive, and quite, quite illegal. Alcohol. The real thing.

“Oh yes!” Carter clapped his hands, and there was a murmur of appreciation from the other marines.

Zia took the bottle from Fathead. “Line it up, boys.” She glanced and looked toward the door. “Your marshal isn’t likely to walk in, is he?”

“Nah,” said Carter. “Spends all his time in the ready room, if he’s not asleep already.”

Zia nodded and offered the bottle to Ida. Ida took it, calculating as he did the proportion of his wages that just a single shot of this would cost him on the black market, and how many years on a labor planet possession of a bottle that size would earn him.

By the time Ida had poured himself a careful measure of the liquid—revealed to be as bright in color as the glass of the bottle—Fathead had downed three shots. His face got redder and his smile wider. He bounced on his chair as he licked the remnants of the drink from his teeth, looking for all the world like a self-aware ventriloquist’s dummy, the old kind Ida had once seen as a child. Fathead’s eyes moved in the same way, keeping a glassy look on Ida as his head wobbled from side to side.

“So you’re a real space hero, my good captain?” asked Fathead, grinning like a loon.

Ida paused, focusing on the intense fireball that exploded on his tongue as soon as it touched the red liqueur. He closed his eyes and willed them not to water. He heard Carter hiss out a laugh between his teeth.

When Ida opened his eyes, everyone at the table was looking at him. Carter with his favorite frown, Fathead with his smile. And for the first time since the incident down on the hub, even Serra seemed to be paying attention.

“Heard you were a hero.” Carter and Ida both turned to Hollywood. She was, apparently, looking straight at Ida as she spoke, but with her mining goggles it was hard to tell. “I also heard you were a coward and a liar.”

Ida couldn’t take his eyes off her face, which was now completely, totally unreadable. Whose side was she on? “That so?”

Carter downed another shot of the liqueur. “Yeah, you going to tell them about that, old man?” he asked, his voice raspy with the kiss of the hard alcohol.

Ida allowed himself a slow smile and drained the remainder of his shot. He exhaled hotly through his nose, and immediately Fathead reached forward and topped his glass up. He made a wet clicking sound behind his fixed grin, which Ida took to be a sign of approval. Ida raised his shot to him as a toast, and then to Zia, and then sank it back. His mouth and throat were stung but numbing nicely. His tongue flopped fatly against the back of his teeth. He looked at Carter.

“Marine, I’m flattered my reputation preceded me across all of Fleetspace, but it’s the utmost shame that it was a load of BS that got here first rather than the truth. Because, frankly, I’m not sure you can fit more than one idea and a half in that brainbox of yours.”

Carter gave Ida a steely look, his face reddening a little, but Ida just leaned back and laughed. Whatever the liqueur was, it was starting to work. Serra smiled. Ida liked that.

“I’d like to hear the truth.”

Ida looked at Zia and was surprised that when his head stopped turning, his eyes kept going. For a second Ms. Hollywood’s image doubled, then trebled, clicking sideways in rapid succession like an out-of-synch video feed, throwing multiple silhouettes like a whole bunch of people standing behind her chair. He focused and held his glass out to Fathead. Fathead made the clicking sound and topped him up. Ida raised the glass a second time.

“Much obliged, man with the hair. And to you too, ma’am.”

He drained the shot in one gulp. The alcohol burn was hot, hot, hot, but now he could taste the drink. His mouth filled with rich wild strawberry. Now he knew why Fathead was so damn happy all the time. He could get used to this. He idly wondered if the
Bloom County
was in need of a retired—formerly retired—Fleet captain with a robot knee.

Ida waved his arms as though to draw the people sitting at the table closer over his campfire. Nobody moved, but he didn’t notice. He had the stage. It was time to tell the truth.

“This is how the shit went down. Lemme tell you about it, right now.”

29

Ida jerked up onto
his elbows, eyes playing around the dark room, lit only by the faint blue LED of the radio set. A few seconds later and his head pounded,
onetwothree-twotwothree,
then settled into a steady, slower beat. That strawberry liqueur had been mighty fine. Too fine.

As he turned his head side to side, the rush of white noise swam with his movement. He imagined Ludmila listening, watching him sleep from her magical nowhere.

“Did you hear that?” Ida whispered, cocking his head. He’d been woken by a scream, but dreams and nightmares were becoming increasingly common. Maybe Izanami would prescribe something. If he could find her. The station medic seemed to be keeping to herself more and more since Ludmila had made contact.

There came a rustling across the subspace waves, like someone brushing against a microphone. “Mmm … Ida?”

“I’m here. Did you hear anything?” He squinted as his head thumped.

A pause, another rustle. “Maybe … I don’t know. I was dreaming, I think. There was a girl, with black hair.…”

Ludmila was cut off by a second scream. It was very real, and not so far away. Ida was on his feet and at the cabin door, ignoring his headache. He stood at the threshold in the dim night-light of the hub corridor. From inside the cabin it was hard to figure out from which direction the cry had come.

Ida stepped into the corridor, and the door slid shut behind him. For now, all was quiet. Ida noticed that the floor-level night-lights had come on for the first time he could remember. Their light was a soft blue, simulating the natural ambience of nightfall on some planet or another, he vaguely recalled. The
Boston Brand
had had them. Usually it was nice. But at times like this, the up and down angles of the light cast odd shadows that made Ida feel uncomfortable. When he looked down toward the far bulkhead door heading away into the demolition zone, blinking made it look like there were people moving in the dark corners of the passageway that weren’t directly illuminated. And in his peripheral vision, Ida kept seeing fast sideways movement, startling enough to make his heart race. All tricks of the light, because the passageway was clearly empty, and Ida was alone.

He kept telling himself this for the next minute or so as he stood, unmoving, working up the courage to pick a direction and take a look. He was a Fleet captain, for God’s sake. Getting spooked by shadows?
Gimme a break
.

For once the station wasn’t an icebox, but the crosshatch flooring was hard on his bare feet. Ida was considering getting dressed when the scream tore the night air into little bits a third time, followed quickly now by the sound of running feet.

“Get in your cabin, let us handle this!” Carter appeared, shod in unlaced boots and stripped down to a stained olive singlet, carrying a plasma rifle. Behind him were two marines, armed and armored, with Zia Hollywood and Fathead bringing up the rear. Fathead was carrying a weapon as long as he was tall with a barrel approximately as wide at the business end as his hair.

“Where’s Serra?”

Carter snarled. “Staying put where she was told to stay put. You gonna be difficult with me now?”

Fathead looked between the two men and waggled his finger at the pair. “I sense tension. Do you two need a moment?” He snickered.

Ida ignored him and looked at Carter. “The intruders didn’t leave, did they?”

The marine looked him in the eye, his stare diamond hard. Then he nodded almost imperceptibly.

“Intruders?” Fathead turned to his boss. “Nobody said nothing about no intruders. You said everything was okay.”

Zia said nothing, but her expression was set, her eyes still hidden behind her goggles, despite the gloom. Ida glanced down and saw she had one hand resting on the handle of pistol hanging from her belt. He hadn’t noticed her wearing it before, but even with it mostly hidden in a holster, Ida could see enough of its curved back and handle to recognize it: a Yuri-G, a small but incredibly powerful pistol. They said it had enough kick to send a man into orbit, hence the nickname. Illegal for civilians. Restricted even for Fleet use. A stray shot would punch a hole straight through the
Coast City
’s herculanium shell. How a celebrity starminer had one strapped to her hip was a mystery to Ida, one that was more than a little alarming. Zia Hollywood moved in unusual circles; the pistol plus the alcohol—perhaps people like her really could operate above the law.

The sentient tattoo on Zia’s arm swirled, perhaps showing annoyance, impatience, neither of which were evident on Zia’s forever-cool features. Ida tried not to think about the way the tattoo’s curling motion matched the way the shadows in the corridor swam out of the corner of his eye. His mind went back to Astrid. Then the image dissolved, almost without conscious thought.

There is no such thing as ghosts. There is no such thing as ghosts.

“I can help,” said Ida, watching his own reflection in Zia’s goggles. He turned to Carter, who seemed ready to keep arguing, when the fourth scream came. It was male, close, and terrible.

Zia stepped around the group and jogged ahead, Fathead on her heels. Carter glanced at Ida.

“Come on,” the marine said. As he turned and headed down the passage, he touched the commlink on his belt and started calling for more backup.

Ida let one of the armored marines go first, then followed, the second bringing up the rear.

*   *   *

Ida struggled to keep
up, his bare feet aching on the decking, the marine following behind forced to check his step. Zia, still at the front, clearly knew which direction to head in.

The auxiliary air lock. Her own ship, the
Bloom County
.

Ida and the second marine finally caught the group as they stopped by the air lock door. It was open, and dark beyond, and Ida was surprised to see the group hesitate. Zia was staring into the void, into her own ship, one hand resting on the bulkhead frame, the other on the butt of the Yuri-G.

“Ivanhoe?” she called out into the air lock. “What’s happened? Day?”

Ida brushed past Carter, who caught him by the arm. Ida shrugged his hand off. He reached forward and touched Zia’s shoulder, but recoiled almost instantly as her tattoo responded to his touch, crawling back up her arm toward Ida’s fingers. The idea of an intelligent swarm of dye particles having free rein of her epidermis made Ida’s own skin crawl.

“What’s wrong?” said Ida.

Zia turned around to face him, and he once more found himself staring at a stereo reflection of himself, bed hair and all. He couldn’t see her eyes, but her mouth was open, finally betraying her uncertainty and fear.

Ida pointed to the air lock. “Whatever’s going on in there, we need to check it out. People don’t scream for no reason.”

He moved forward to take the lead, but this time it was Zia’s hand on his shoulder. He turned.

“It’s … it’s dark.”

Ida frowned and turned back to the passage ahead. It was short and unlit, but at the far end, no more than a few meters away, the lights were on at a junction, a service ladder leading up out of sight and down to a recessed hatch. There seemed to be options to turn left and right as well.

“Which way is the bridge?”

Zia hesitated. Ida watched the pulse in her neck twitch.

“Zia, which way?”

She nodded ahead. “Up. It’s up and forward.”

“Fine,” said Ida. Without waiting for the rest of them, he turned and jogged down the passage toward the junction. The dark around him seemed to crowd in, blurring the lights ahead of him, but he kept his gaze fixed ahead and three seconds later was at the ladder. The metal rungs were icy against his bare feet and hands, but he powered upward and through the open ceiling hatch. Behind him, he heard the others rattle down the passage in their mix of heavy boots. Zia had been right about the dark. It was like moving through smoke. It crossed Ida’s mind that maybe someone with a gun should be the one going first, but they were being slow enough already.

Ida emerged into a junction similar to the one he’d entered. The ladder continued upward to another hatch, and behind him a second black passage leading to a room, dim yellow light spilling hardly any distance at all from the opening. The flight deck. The yellow light shifted like someone was crossing in front of it.