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Pure Bollocks Issue 22_063
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F I C T I O N A L * R A M B L I N G S
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This appeared first on Sewer Software Disk 11. It was typed for Sewer SoftWare
by Mezzo! Thanks to those guys and to Mr Orb for sending us the disk!
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The Dark Wheel - A novella by Robert Holdstock
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CHAPTER ONE
From the moment that the trading ship, Avalonia, slipped its orbital berth
above the planet Lave, and began to manoeuvre for the hyperspace jump
point, its measureable life-span, and that of one of its two-man crew, was
exactly eighteen minutes.The space station gently span away into the
shadows and the small Ophidian class vessel shuddered as its motors angled it
round towards the faraway jump. The planet Lave, below, rotated in blue-
green splendour. There were storms moving across the Paluberion Sea, six
great whorls of pink and white cloud. they were approaching the
continental mass that was FirstFall, and promising a bleak and wet few
days to the swathes of forest and the deep, snaking valleys that cut
through the rugged land. The cities of both Humankind and Lavian glittered
among the verdant blanket below, like bright shards of glass.
Watching the lush world from his seat at the astrogation console, Alex
Ryder expressed an audible sigh of regret that he had not been allowed
down to the world himself. next to him, fingers moving expertly over the
keys of the trader's ManOp console, his father grinned. Jason Ryder knew
well enough the frustration of only being allowed to observe a rich and
fabled world like Lave from orbit. he had been planetside once, an
unforgettable experience...But the rules and regulations of the Galactic Co-
operative of Worlds were strict - and sensible. Lave, like any other
planet, was not a holiday resort, not a curiosity. it was a living,
evolving world, and there were folk down below to whom that world was
everything that Old earth had once been to the Human race. Protection.
Mother. Home.
Another time, another year, Alex thought. You earned your visit to
Lave, and he had hardly begun his professional life. he still had so much to
learn.
The Ryders had been a trading family for three generations. it had
begun with Ben Ryder, who had traded almost exclusively using shot-up
pirate ships. Ben had lived life on the edge, and, one day, one night, one
star year, he had not returned. Out in the void between the stars his
grave was as remote as it was private, and would probably never be found. his
son, and his grandson - who was Jason Ryder - had follow the family
business. Alex would soon have to make the final decision: whether to
sacrifice his life to shuttling cargo between the worlds of the Galactic Co-
operative, or to train for a different profession.
Let's be clear about trading. trading between worlds is no game for a
youngster with ideas of getting rich quick. you can spend a lifetime
carrying food, machinery and textiles, and at the end of that life you'll
have enough saved up to buy you a patch of coastal land on an Earth-type
world, and spend the rest of your days in quiet, isolated comfort.
That's all.
A lifetime of sweat and combat for an orbital shuttle, a home, and the
clear blue of an alien sea at your doorstep. If you want more, there are
ways of getting it: narcotics, slaves, zoo animals, weapons, political
refugees ... trade in any of these things and wealth will tumble around
you.
And corsairs, and privateers, and pirates...
And the police.
The strain of the years of honest trading was already telling on Jason
Ryder, but he had invested wisely, and this small, cargo-carrying,
pleasure yacht was his pride and joy. he could get away from the trade
lanes for a while (although he always respected the trader maxim that 'an
empty hold means an empty head', and never travelled freight-less; today he
was carrying thrumpberry juice, an exotic flavouring). He could show his
son what space was really like, and whet the lad's appetite ... or let him see
that a life in hard vacuum was one of the hardest lives of all.
For his part, Alex ryder would need a lot more convincing. he was a
tall, fair-haired young man, wiry and athletic. He was atmo-surfing
champion on the Ryder homeworld, Ontiat, and very bright. Like all young men
of his age he was reluctant to switch his status from that of student to
professional, with all that that meant in terms of settling with one
particular girl, one job, and beginning to plan for when, eventually, he
would buy his own land.
He still had a year to decide, a year of surfing, free-fall baseball,
cloud barbecues, hi-falling, partner selection and Sim-Combat.
He was in no hurry.
Except that he loved space. Loved the flash of the sun on duralium
hulls, the clutter and confusion of the space ports.
Loved the idea o other worlds, of exploration, of path-finding.
The voice of SysCon, which controlled all traffic flow in Lave's orbit-
space, murmured softly, 'Avalonia, make a four-minute drift-flight to
Faraway jump point.'
'Understood', Alex called back, and adjusted the auto accordingly. His
father sat back and smiled, his job done for the moment.
SysCon said, 'Enter Faraway jump along channel two seven, at forty-five
orient.'
'Affirmed,' Alex said, and his father rolled the ship along its central
axis, ready for the dangerous hyperspace transit.
Everything looked good.
On the rear monitor, where the planet shone brilliantly as it slowly
moved through the heavens, a dark shadow drifted into vision: another
ship, lining up for the Faraway jump.
It was quite normal. Alex took no notice, more concerned about the
impending transit through hyperspace. His father scrutinised the other
vessel for a moment, the relaxed.
He had no way of knowing that he only had fourteen minutes left alive.
Making a Faraway jump in a system as complex and crowded as Lave is no
simple business. A hundred eyes are watching you for the slightest
mistake. Make a mistake in orbit-space and the next time you go to dock at one
of the world's Coriolis space stations a big NOT WELCOME sign might flash in
the vacuum before you.
You slip your C-berth under the instruction of Station Space Monitor.
Perhaps twenty ships are doing the same. You go when it's safe. You
rotate, accelerate, decelerate and spin to the absolute second, both of
time and arc. That way you get clear without two thousand tons of duralium
trader rammed into your hyperspace jets.
It isn't over.
Now you're under supervision of HSA, Home Space Authority, and they'll
jockey you safely about among the traders, and the yachts, and the
ferries, and the shuttles, and the star-liners, and the arrow-shaped
police patrol ships. All of these vessels slip and slide about you,
streaks of silver in the darkness, flashing green and blue lights, sudden
walls of grey metal that pass across your bows, winking yellow warning
beacons.
You move through this chaos and a new voice begins to call for
attention. Now you're with the Faraway Orientation Systems Controller;
FOSC - or SysCon - sets you up for the big jump. You're going to cover
maybe seven light years in a few minutes, and you might think that's a lot of
space to get lost in, but that isn't how it works. Faraway is a tunnel, like
any other tunnel. Inside that tunnel is the realm called Witch-Space, a magic
place, a place where the normal rules of the universe don't necessarily
work. And every few thousand par-secs along the Witch-Space tunnel there are
monitoring satellites, and branch lines, and stop points, and rescue
stations; and passing by all of these are perhaps a hundred channels, a
hundred 'lines' for ships to travel, each one protected against the two
big dangers of hyperspace travel: atomic reorganization, and time
displacement.
Jump on your own through hyperspace, across more than half a light
year, and you'll be lucky to make the same universe, let alone your
destination.
You might emerge from Witch-Space turned inside out (which is not a
pretty sight).
You might be stretched in all the wrong angles, and although the ship
keeps travelling, that jelly mass of broken bone and flesh inside the
cabin is you.
According to legend, you might come through okay and breathe a sigh of
relief, only to go into Earth orbit and wonder why that big lizard, with the
teeth and the long tail and the green scales is roaring up at you, and warning
you off his nice Jurassic patch of prehistoric desert.
To go Faraway is a killer, unless you obey the rules.
So for a few minutes, on that fateful day, Alex ryder was content to
let the robot voices of SysCon guide his family's ship through the space
lanes, towards the jump point for the planet Leesti. He relaxed, beside his
father, and watched the bustle of the space port.
The shadow behind them, the ship that was following their path towards
Faraway, was a Cobra class cargo freighter.
No-one knew how or when the designation of space-going vessels had been
linked to the names of snakes. The Ryder's own vessel was a relatively
harmless Ophidion, capable of two hyperspace jumps, armed very basically, set
up, really, only to destroy imminent dangers, like asteroids,
meteoroids, or 'crazy craft', the name given to vessels that were out of
control, or ridden by juveniles out for kicks.
The Cobra was a bigger vessel by far.
A common trading ship, most Cobras are buried beneath the weaponry and
defences that their hard-bitten, tough-talking captains have accrued. And
with good reason...
To be a trader is to be two things: dangerous,and at risk. Dangerous
because to survive as a trader you have to know your weapons and how to use
them in space combat you need to be able to recognise a pirate, or an
anarchist, or a Thargoid invader, or a police trap when you might be
carrying any one of a thousand prohibited materials.
And at risk for the same reason. A juicy Cobra, weighed down with
minerals or rare textiles, or furs, or ore, is as tasty a target for a
freebooter as any in the Galaxy.
To be a trader means to shoot first and pray that you've read the
warning signs alright, and that your victim was a pirate.
Make a mistake and not even two shells of time-stressed duralium and a
belly full of missiles is going to save you from the vipers.
Vipers. Police ships. Small, fast, deadly. And most particularly,
tenacious. The pilot is a man, certainly, but kill the man and the ship
will keep coming at you. Kill the ship and it's missile will keep coming at
you. Kill the missile and watch for the shadow.
When a viper bites, it clings.
Eleven minutes...
'There's a sight you'll not often see...'
His father's words broke through Alex's silent, concentrated study of
the planet they were leaving. To the right, running a parallel course
towards the Faraway tunnel, was an odd-shaped ship, with powerful lights
flickering on and off. It was catching the sun and Alex could see how it was
slowly spinning about it's central axis. Fish-like fins opened and closed.
Across it's sleek hull a rapid pattern of coloured lights rippled.
A Moray. A subaqua vessel, designed for both space and undersea
voyaging. The Moray was rare ship indeed to see in space, especially about to
undertake a hyperspace transit. On worlds like Regiti and Aona, where the
only land was the tips of volcanoes, rising above the oceans, the Moray
was both freighter and public transport, a vital ship-link between the
undersea cities that were developing in such hostile environments.
The Moray's frantic colour signalling ceased. Alex noticed that his
father was watching the animalistic display (the coding had been developed
from the signalling of a terrestrial aquatic creature, the squid) with a
frown on his face.
'Something up?'
Jason shrugged. 'Not sure. Probably not'.
Alex watched the Moray with renewed interest, then turned back to the
rear view, where the Cobra had nudged a few kilometres closer.
'Shall we warn him to stay back?'
Jason shook his head. For the first time Alex realised that his father
had been as aware of the trader as he, and had been studying it curiously for
some minutes. There was a tension on the Avalonia's bridge that was unusual
and unpleasant.
Something wasn't right. Alex had no idea what, but he sensed it
powerfully.
Something was not going according to routine.
Then the go-signal for entry to the Faraway tunnel flashed on,
accompanied by a gentle audio prompt.
And as it did so, the Avalonia's life expectancy had shrunk to just
nine minutes.
Around the entry point to Witch-Space is always to be found the biggest
cluster of transit vessels, most of them moored in groups at orbital buoys
while mechanics and repairmen crawl over them, checking and servicing
their external systems. At such a point in any advanced system like lave
you'll see every ship of the line, every type, subtype and artificially
mocked-up version of every snake-ship ever built.
As they approached the jump, Alex practised ship identification, a
crucial talent in any space-faring profession. The unarmed, unmanned orbit
shuttles were easy enough to spot, as they ferried cargo all around the
system. He noticed two Asps, Navy ship, small manouevrable and deadly,
well protected against attack, and with highly advanced military weapons
systems. He also saw a single Krait, the so called StarStriker, a small,
one-man ship much favoured by pathfinders and mercenaries.
To his right, space-docked, and still unloading her passengers, was the
immense, cylindrical mass of an Anaconda, a massive freighter that had
been adapted to passenger transport. It was an ugly ship, and it's yawning
ram-scoop gave it the appearance of being a squat, blind creature with
it's mouth disgustingly agape.
The catalogue was endless. Boa class cruisers; Pythons; the bounty
hunters' favourite, the Fer-de-lance, packed out with weapons, and no
doubt decked out inside like a palace; landing craft called Worms; Mambas;
Sidewinders ... large craft and small, all winking brightly and reflecting
sunlight in brilliant blue-grey sheens.
And of course, the were advertising droidships, their catchy light
displays blinking out information about ROHAN'S REAL EARTH ALE WITH HONEY, or
KETTLE'S CLONE-YOUR-OWN FUNGAL CURES. Or even offering the 'last real food
before Witch-Space', small restaurant ships designed to dock and supply
instant nourishment (PRIEST'S PERFECT PROTOPOLYPS, TUTTLE'S TASTY
THERAPSBLADDERS) to space-weary travellers.
'Here we go ... Hang on to your seat...'
Jason Ryder always said this, and Alex always fell for it. he tensed up as
if the ship were about to plunge over a gravity roller. In fact, the entry
to Witch-Space was accompanied by an almost negligable accelerative surge, a
moment's dizziness, and then the spectacular sight of the stars brightening,
spreading out and suddenly streaking in multi-coloured circular
patterns, so that the ship seemed to be passing down a spinning tube.
Almost as soon as the surge of acceleration had come it had gone. The ship
drifted into 'Witch Light', in the non-place in space and time. It was
crossing the void between stars in seconds, but for those seconds it was in
a twilight world whose existence was beyond imagination.
They say the Witch-Space is haunted. Maybe that's why the call it
'witch'. Time turns all around, and atoms turn inside out, and gravity
waves billow up, and things move there, lifeforms, or shadows, or atoms, or
galaxies, who knows? No-one has ever stopped and gone outside to find out.
Only robot remotes exist there, switching stations, monitors, rescue Droids
and the like. Whatever lives in Witch-Space, in the Faraway tunnels,
will remain a mystery always.
But there are ghosts there, the ghosts of early ships that went in to
Faraway, and didn't come out again.
Ghosts...
And shadows.
The shadow of a snake. A Cobra ... Rising over them ...
'What in God's name...?'
Jason Ryder had gone whiter than white light.
Trapped in Witch-Space, there was nothing he could do to out-manoeuvre
the other vessel. Alex said, 'He doesn't know the rules. Perhaps it's a
rookie pilot-'
'Perhaps,' his father said. Jason Ryder's eyes never left the scanners.
His face had beaded with sweat. Alex watched the shadow of the Cobra...
Well-equipped ... a fuel-scoop, missile silos, extra cargo holds, the
squat dome of an energy bomb housing ... a rich ship indeed and a deadly
one...
'They can't be intending to attack us.'
'They hell they can't!'
Three minutes...
And they came out of Witch-Space!
Immediately, Jason's hands began to fly over the key console. The
Avalonia surged forward, rotating on it's long axis. The planet Leesti was a
small, greenish disc in the far distance. Alex saw his father arm the two
missiles that the Avalonia carried, then reached to rest his hand on the
multiple laser-trigger.
It was a pirate then. And as Alex came to accept the inevitability of
combat, his mouth went dry and his mind sharpened. He had never been in
combat before, not for real, only in the SimTrainer. he had heard his
father talk about it, of course. And combat did not sound glorious...
A pirate ship, disguised as a trader, pursuing its victim into Witch-
Space itself...for their cargo of...
Thrumpberry flavouring?
An uneasy voice whispered in Alex's mind. This was untypical behaviour
for a freebooter. They normally waited at the edge of planetary systems,
watching for their prey with long-distance scanners, picking and choosing
carefully. Pirates could be found everywhere, of course, though rarely in
space around Corporate State worlds, or Democracies (the police were too
efficient). Planets run by anarchistic or feudal governments were a
pirate's favourite haunt.
This behaviour was wrong...
Not a pirate.
Alex looked from the slowly rotating planet to the grim, grey features of
his father. They were a long way from safety. 'What the hell are we up
against?'
'Put on a RemLok and get to the escape pod,' Jason Ryder murmured. 'Do
It!'
'I'll say and fight.'
'The hell you will. Do as I say,' As he spoke, Jason thrust a small,
black face-mask - the remote-space-locator - at his son.
The first missiles struck the Avalonia's shields, and Jason punched the
launch buttons on his own defences. The small ship veered and strained as he
looped it in an escape run, activating its ECM as the Cobra launched a second
wave of missiles.
But through the brightness the sombre grey shape of the killer came
on...
It happened so fast, then, that afterwards Alex was uncertain as to
what exactly had happened. The duelling ships span and circled in towards the
planet. Space around them blazed silently as their weapons struck and were
deflected.
Then the whole universe rocked. Air screeched into the void. the lights in
the Avalonia blinked and dimmed. Warning lights shot on across the
console: laser temperature in the red, screens down, energy low, cargo
jettisoned, cabin temperature dropping...
In the same moment of the Avalonia's death, Alex Ryder found himself
being struck by his father, the remlok mask being forced into place about his
eyes, nose and mouth. Then his whole body was physically manhandled into
the escape pod.
The ship shuddered and screamed. Fuel spilled into the void.
Father and son faced each other for a last moment, each watching the
other through a mist of tears and confusion...
'I don't understand...' Alex screamed above the noise of the dying
ship, meaning: Who's trying to kill us?
'Raxxla!' Jason said. 'Remember Raxxla!' Then, as he pushed Alex back
into the cramped escape pod, he shouted, 'Remember me, Alex! I wouldn't
have wished this on you. Raxxla!'
The escape pod was jettisoned. Alex tumbled. The sleek shape of the
Avalonia was above him, and then just white light -
White heat.
Cold space!
In a second it had gone, the ship, his father, a part of his life -
obliterated by a single burst of fire from the hovering shape of the
pirate.
And as Alex watched, so a yellow tongue of fire licked towards the
tumbling escape pod. He felt heat, then pain, then cold...
The tiny survival vehicle was blasted apart, sparkling fragments
falling towards the green world of Leesti.
Alex hit space, arms flailing, mouth opened, conciousness and life
draining from him with every second...
CHAPTER TWO
In space, everyone can hear you scream...
As long, that is, as you're equipped with a RemLok survival mask.
An instant after Alex Ryder hit the hard vacuum, a skin of plasFibre had
been shot across his body from nozzles on the face piece, keeping him warm
against the cold, tightening and protecting him, securing him against the
void. The oxygen flow in his body was cut off to all but his heart and brain.
Needle-doses of adrenalin and somnokie were held ready, just within the skin
area of his mouth, ready to alert or depress his body functions according to
circumstances.
And the RemLok screamed through space for help.
It was a standard survival device, an instantly recognisable distress
call indicating that it was being sent out from a small, remotely located,
dying body. The alarm screeched out on forty channels, shifting wavelength
within each channel four times a second. One hundred and sixty chances to
catch attention...
A cumbersome Boa class cruiser, loaded down with industrial machinery,
slowed its departure run from Leesti and turned to scan space for the
source of the signal...
Two police vipers came streaking from their patrol sector, near the
sun, scanning for the body in trouble...
An adapted Moray Starboat, a vast glowing yellow star on its hull - the
sign of a hospital ship - came chugging out of the darkness...
Messages from ships to both the planet and its ring of Coriolis
stations were abruptly broken as the split second message came streaming
through. TV programmes were interrupted, the screen disolving into a
permanently recorded display of the space-grid location of the RemLok.
Every advertising space module changed its garish display to flash, in
brilliant green, the same information.
In the orbit-space around Leesti, a million heads turned starwards.
That split second of panic, that moment's cry of distress, was a sound
they knew too well to ignore, and were too frightened of to take for
granted.
Within twenty seconds, two autoremotes, tiny vessels just big enough to
carry an hour's oxygen, one dose each of forty drugs, and a variety of
other stimulants, were hovering around Alex Ryder's spinning body. One of
them shot out a stabilising cable and dragged itself to his corpse.
Blinking through its solitary monitor, it hovered over his face like a
squat, legless, dachshund hound and pumped adrenalin, oxygen and glucose
into his bloodstream. Alex opened his eyes and panicked slightly. The
autoremote calmed him down with a quick pumpsurge of tetval.
The robot's voice whispered in his ears,'Brandy? Scotch? Vodka? I am
equipped with a full range of miniature stimulants to make the waiting
easier.'
'What ... happened ... ship? ... Avalonia ... ' he gasped through the
tight face mask.
The autoremote blinked at him sympathetically,'Brandy, then,' and hit
Alex with two shots of Qutirian SynCognac.
An hour later he was aboard the Moray hospital vessel, in parked orbit
above the grey-green face of the world Leesti. Burns to his hands and face had
been taken care of. Minor blood vessels that had ruptured in his skin had
been knitted back together. he was bruised, stunned, but essentially fit
physically.
The image of the ship exploding had begun to haunt him, however. He
stood by the wide, sloping window of his hospital room, staring out across the
bright of space to the slowly rotating world below, watching the flash and
tumble of shuttles, and small freighters as they either glided up from
worldDown, or struck the atmosphere on their descent, leaving brief,
brilliant flares of red in the thin planetary atmosphere.
Wherever he looked he could see the shadow of the Cobra, rising up in
the Witchlight, a great killer beast, closing on its prey.
And his father's face ...
The sudden alarm, the sudden anger, and yet ... and yet Jason Ryder had
known.
His grieving, mind-stunned son just knew that his father had been more
aware of the danger than he had let on. It had been in his face, in the
tension in the cabin, in the slow, deliberate words that he had spoken
during the approach run to hyperspace.
Jason had known that his life was within danger. He had been ready for
it, ready to save his son in the event of attack ...
It made no sense. But for the moment Alex felt only loss, the loss of a
man he had loved. Both his parents were gone, now. His homeworld would
seem an empty, uninviting place.
Behind him, the door opened softly and the grey-suited figure of a
nurse appeared. She reproved him mildly for being out of bed, but seemed
please by his apparently calm mental state.
There followed what seemed like a constant stream of visitors. First the
doctor, scanning him for tension and psychic repression. The medic was not
pleased. he more or less said, 'Young man, your father is dead and it would
do you no harm to shed a few tears. Its all there, all the grief, all the
sadness. It'll do you no good to deny it.'
'I'll grieve for my father,' Alex said back angrily, coldly. 'I'll
grieve among the ashes of the pirate that killed him. And not until.'
'Will you indeed.'
'Yes,' Alex stated defiantly. 'I will. Indeed.'
After the doctor had gone, the man from the Galactic Medical Co-
operative came, fussily checking up on Alex's medical insurance, making
sure that he was covered for all aspects of the treatment, including his
Faraway transit home.
Then the police, two lean-faced men, wearing the grey cloaks and silver
waistcoats of the Narcotics Investigation department. What cargo had the
Avalonia been carrying? Why would a pirate be so interested in him as to
follow him to a Corporate State world? Had his father ever transported
drugs? Firearms? Slaves? What about alien substances: Manjooza, fear
glands, Marswurt? What was said in the moments before destruction? Would he
recognise the ship again? What were its markings?
Alex told them everything he could remember. Everything he'd seen.
Everything he'd heard ...
Except for the fact that his father had clearly known the danger.
And except for the word Raxxla.
The police left. they were not satisfied. Alex had just received his
solo pilot's license, so he could make his own way back to his homesystem, but
he should notify them of what route he was taking.
Raxxla...
Alex watched them go, their viper a slim, evil-looking ship as it
rolled and sped away from the hospital vessel. His mood matched the dim- lit
room, matched the gloom-grey of the storms that were building up on the
world below. Leesti's oceans looked wild and cold, now, its clouds great
charcoal coloured swirls of anger above the ragged, mountainous land.
Raxxla.
What could it be? What could it mean?
At midnight, still resting and recouperating (care of the Leesti
Medical Authority), a small green light winked on in his room. alex, still
awake, frowned then realised that he was being monitored.
'What is it?' he asked the empty room, and a nurse's voice whispered,
'There's a holoFac message coming through for you. They've requested a
tightbeam. Will you receive?'
Alex sat up in bed. No-one knew he was here. Did they? He frowned and
said, 'Sure.'
'Will you accept the charge against your CR?'
Curiouser and curiouser. Since he was broke, and without credit until he
sorted out his GMC insurance, it was easy for him to say, 'Yes.'
In the middle of his room the air suddenly shimmered white, small
bright particles flying off in all directions around the gradually defined
shape of a man. He was tall, but slightly stooped. As the whiteness of the
image resolved into colour, the whiteness of the man stayed. His hair was
long and snowy, his beard ragged. His face had a touch of colour. His eyes
were small, gleaming points among the wrinkles. He was smiling. he wore a
tattered trader's uniform, and one arm hung limp by his side. even his
boots were worn down, and the toes were split. The handlaser at his side had
seen the same better days as the rest of his equipment.
'You the Ryder Boy?' this apparition of run-down age asked. the voice
creaked, a gruff, battered tone, the voice of a man who had breathed hard
vacuum.
'That's me. Alex Ryder. And you?'
Alex climbed out of bed and went to stand before the life-sized
holoFac. The old man watched him, and chewed. Then he spat. The gobbet of
stained spittle seemed to fly straight towards Alex's shoulder and he
winced and jerked slightly to one side, before realising that nothing
could travel into real space from the holo.
'You don't remember me,' the old man said. 'That's clear enough. But I
remember you.'
'Give me a name.'
'Rafe Zetter. Trader of old. Traded with your father for many years,
till we parted company on account of a certain issue which, you might say ...
caused a difference of opinion between us.'
'Slaves,' Alex said quickly. He remembered Rafe, now. But what had
happened to the man? he was old before his time. He was the same age as
Jason Ryder would have been, but looked twenty years more.
'Slaves is right,' Rafe said. 'I ran my life on the edge of a Viper's
sting ...' trader parlance for 'one jump ahead of the law'. 'But my the
time I indulged that little whim, my ass was hard iron. I somehow made it to
hell 'n' back. That's where I am now.'
'In hell?'
'Broke.'
Alex nodded, picking up slowly on the trader slang. An 'iron ass' was a
ship that was well enough defended - shields, missiles, and lasers - to
make a skim run through any system at all, even an anarchist's paradise
like Sotiqu. All hell and then some would come at you if you tried to
trade in such a chaotic system. 'Hell 'n' back' meant that Rafe had tasted the
good life, bought with the profits of his illegal trading, but that it had all
gone wrong.
It always went wrong.
Rafe said, 'I was damn sorry to hear about Jason. A good man. A good
friend of old, and a man I still respect.'
'It didn't happen but eight hours ago,' Alex said coldly. 'How the hell
did you get to hear about it.'
Rafe Zetter chuckled, then spat again, and again Alex couldn't help
ducking. The Spittle vanished at the holoFac's edge and Alex felt a chill of
irritation. 'You got your father's temper, young Alex. Maybe you've even
got some of his skills.'
'Answer my question, old man. How do you manage to know about my
father? How did you find me?'
Watching him from the holo, Rafe chewed, smiled and considered. Alex
tensed, waiting for the next high-velocity spit-transmission.
Rafe said, 'I repeat, Alex. I had great respect for Jason Ryder. For
what he was, and what he was doing.'
'He was a good man,' Alex said. 'And an honest trader.'
'He was a damn sight more than that,' Rafe said loudly, and spat. Alex
dodged. The ghostly holoFac image shimmered and blurred slightly.
'What does that mean?'
Rafe Zetter leaned forward so that his grizzled features seemed almost
able to kiss the younger man. 'He was a combateer, Alex. One of the best. No
way should he have died like he did...'
'My father was a trader, not a combateer,' Alex said, startled and
disturbed by what Rafe was implying.
'Guess again, sonny.'
'But it sickened him to fire shots in anger.'
'Maybe,' Rafe said drily. 'But it didn't stop him. How else do you
think he made it as a trader all those years? Dammit Alex, even if your
cargo is sour-cream and pickles there's someone going to try and take it
from you. Your father was a combateer of the highest calibre ...'
Alex swallowed heavily, staring at the quizzical features of old Rafe
Zetter. 'The highest calibre ...?'
Rafe nodded. 'That's right, Alex,' he said softly. 'You can be deadly,
you can be dangerous, and you can end up as pet food in orbit around a
dog's ass-of-a-world like Isveve. But if you're elite, and you die, then
there's a reason for your death ...'
What was this old man saying? Elite? An elite combateer? Alex's head
span. He knew all about the space pilots who'd earned that title, of
course. few of them did. To be elite in combat was to be ... well, as near
invincible as made no odds. A great many pilots were 'dangerous'; you
didn't last long as a trader if you weren't. Many more had earned the
classification 'deadly'. So had a lot of mercenaries. So had a lot of
pirates.
But elites. Few and far between.
And his father, Jason Ryder, had been elite, and none of his family had
ever known!
'Jason was one of the very best. You probably never saw his ship, but it
was like a fortress. He traded places that most of us would have had
nightmares about.' Rafe shook his head admiringly. 'One of the best. A man of
the highest calibre ...' His gaze hardened on Alex. 'The question is ... Can
you be the same?'
'What makes you doubt it?'
'Jason never said anything about you. I guess he was trying to protect
you. The trouble is that it gives me nothing to go on: you're going to
avenge your father's death - I can tell that from the look of you, and
your tone, and your anger - but for all I know, that'll just mean one more
Ryder will be stardust before he even manages to target a missile.'
Not liking Rafe Zetter's tone, Alex said bitterly, 'I've done hours of
Simcombat. I score highly...'
Rafe laughed and spat voluminously, then became serious.
'Alex, there's something I've got to know. Maybe you're going to end up -'
'Pet food in orbit around Isveve!'
'Yeah. Maybe that. The only person who knew your talents was your
father. Tell me, Alex, and tell me true, now ... Did he say anything to you
... you know ... in the moments before he died? Did he indicate
anything, or say anything?'
'He said a lot,' Alex murmured, and felt a strong pang of grief as he
remembered the look in his father's eyes, the greyness of his cheeks, and his
desperate words, remember me, Alex... 'I think he knew he was going to die.
The last thing he said was the word Raxxla. I don't know what that is. An
alien, I guess ...'
Rafe smiled, shaking his head. Suddenly there was a brilliant sparkle in
his eyes: 'Raxxla's no alien, Alex. It's a ghost world. A planet. A legend
...' He hesitated, staring quizzically at the younger man through the
distant link between them, 'Jason really said that to you?'
Alex nodded. 'Moments before ... It was the last thing he said.'
'Then he knew,' Rafe said with a nod. 'And that's good enough for me.
Alex, get your frail shell to Tionisla and take a visitor's shuttle to the
orbital cemetery there. Say you've come to see the grave of Starpilot
Fleischer. And take a good look around. You do that, boy. Tomorrow. I'll be
waiting for you.'
'Waiting to do what?'
Rafe chuckled. 'How're you going to hunt a Cobra? You going to hitch-
hike? Or use a big stick? You'll need a ship. Hunt like with like. get to the
wreckplace at Tionisla. I know just the vehicle you need. Don't speak to
anyone. Just get to Tionisla.'
'But - '
'Au'voir, Alex!'
And Rafe Zetter spat for the last time before the holoFac faded.
Alex didn't flinch. Something whistled past his ear and struck the far
wall behind him.
CHAPTER THREE
The best way to see the wreckplace at Tionisla is to approach it from the Sun
(a reasonably safe thing to do since Tionisla, being a Democracy has few
pirates in its system). Tionisla itself is a bright yellow world, and the
cemetery is always between the planet and its star. As you fly close, the
whole strange graveyard seems to be expanding from the circle of the world
behind.
The first thing you see is a shimmering, silver disc, a double spiral of
tiny bright points. It slowly turns: it's a galaxy in miniature, with the
same intense blur of light at its centre, because here is where the biggest
tombs are to be found.
Come closer and soon you can see that the stars in this galaxy are
markers, great lumps of metal, heavily inscribed with the words and
symbols of a thousand religions. The cemetery is a bizarre and moving
sight. The markers are rarely less than a thousand feet across. There are
chrome-alloy crosses, titanium Stars of David, duralium henges, and all the
strange symbollic shapes of the worlds, and the minds and the faiths that
have come to die in this Star traveller's special place.
Tethered below this vast, rotating mausoleum is the dodecahedral shape of
a 'Dodo' class space station, the home of the Cemetery Authorities. Here
you go through security checks and get your visitor's visa. And as you stand
in the queue, staring up through the translucent ceiling of the Customs Hall,
you can see the battered, broken ships of many of the dead, still attached to
the silent tomb that contains the body.
It's a good enough reason to come to Tionisla. There are pickings
aplenty among the wrecks. The treasures of centuries might be revealed by
pressing the right panel on the right cube of black, alien metal as it
floats silently by.
Or maybe not treasure, just the tomb's defences...
A pit with a laser.
A robot guardian with knives where its hands should be.
A hyperspace vacuum that sucks you in and throws you out into another
time.
You tread carefully among the wrecks in orbit about Tionisla. The
creatures buried here - human and alien - had money enough to buy these
prized resting places, and more than enough wealth to protect their
property after death from the mercenary fingers of bounty hunters.
Formalities completed, his newly issued pilot's license checked, Alex
Ryder was given a small tour-ship, and oddly shaped and cumbersome vessel. He
drifted quickly among the tombs, seeking the resting place of Starpilot
Fleischer, following co-ordinates on the ship's cemetery plan.
He soon found what he was looking for. Whoever Fleischer had been, he
was monstrously egocentric: his tomb was a great crystalline structure, a
puff-ball of diamond-bright needles, literally hundreds of feet across. His
body, dressed in the red uniform of an elite combateer, hovered in stasis
at the centre of this great construct, illuminated by focused light from the
sun.
Tethered to the simple monument of the grave next to this was the
battered, blistered shape of a Cobra class ship, its insignia still
proudly displayed, but all its vital equipment, its fuel-scoop, its extra
cargo bays, its aft missile and laser banks removed.
Alex stared at it. It looked nothing like the Cobra that had destroyed
his father's ship. That vessel had been bristling with all the extra
things that good money could buy, to defend and to attack, and to make the
trading game an easier prospect for the elite trader.
A light on the Cobra winked on.
Alex blinked, then looked again. Sure enough, a small, red light was
flashing on and off, a brief sequence of code.
LAND ON DOR PL
'Land on the dorsal plate' - That was clear enough.
Alex manoeuvred his tiny craft above the arrow shape of the Cobra, and
touched it gently onto the heat-blistered hull. He looked guiltily.
Touching monuments wasn't permitted and the cemetery was patrolled by
Kraits, small and deadly security craft, with instructions to blast away any
man, woman or child seen tampering with a mausoleum...
But the graveyard was huge, and the shadows of the great tombs
transferred this miniature world of the dead into a place of hide-outs, and
shifting, occasional safety.
An entry port opened, and a green light quickly blinked the message
'Come aboard'. Alex flew the tour-ship into the hull space and when he got the
'pressure green' signal stepped out and walked cautiously towards the main
control area. He opened the sliding door and blinked for a moment at the
bright control displays and scanners. Ahead of him, the main screen was
wide, and filled with a view of Fleischer's crystal tomb.
Silhouetted against the gleaming brightness of the crystal was the
shape of a man, wearing a full space suit. One hand rested on the
navigation console, the other hovered above the laser button.
'I'm aboard,' Alex said, and walked up behind the silent pilot. The man
made no movement, said nothing.
For a moment Alex stood beside him, staring out into the wreckplace, at
the slowly shifting monuments, at the stars glimpsed in the background.
Then he turned to greet his host.
And nearly died of shock, taking a quick horrified step backwards!
It was the drawn, mummified face of a corpse that half looked up at him
from behind its visor, the rictus smile of death stretching wide across its
lips.
'Do you think we should take him with us?' a voice asked from across the
cabin. Alex started again with suprise and watched the figure which emerged
from the shadows. 'As a sort of totem. A lucky charm.'
Alex tried to smile, but neither relief nor the new arrival's charming
grin could relax him enough. too much had happened too fast, and he stood
rooted to the spot, watching as the woman came over to him.
She was quite small. He skin was olive, her eyes dark. She wore her
hair in a fashionable series of spikes, like a porcupine. Dressed in the
light green coveralls that most traders sported, she seemed swamped by
clothes. her hand-touch was cool and confident, and she kept the contact as
she looked up at Alex Ryder, still smiling disarmingly.
'So you're the man that Rafe has chosen. Well Alex. So far it seems
that star-riding with you is at least going to be quiet. You do ... er
...' she frowned. 'You do have a speech function?' She turned him slightly and
felt up his back for the switch. 'or are you one of the early
'semaphore and gormless grin' models?'
'Sorry,' Alex said. 'You took me by suprise.'
'Oh God,' the woman said. 'Where's the off-switch? I think I prefer you
silent...'
'Who are you?' Alex asked, irritated by her levity and keen to find out
why Rafe Zetter had summoned him here. Where was the old man?
'Trader Fields', she said, and touched the heel of her right hand to
her left shoulder by way of salute. 'My given name is Elyssia. Elyssia
Fields.' She smiled again. 'My brood mother's little joke. She discovered
Greek mythology at age 9 when she was incubating her first cluster.'
Brood mother? Greek? Incubating clusters? That meant that Elyssia
Fields was from Teorge, the so-called 'clone-world'. Alex struggled to
remember what he'd been taught about Teorge ... an inhabited world ...
settled by two colony ships that had proceeded to clone a select few of the
crew and colonists, killing the others. For centuries Teorge had been a
world apart, cut off from the normal flow of trade and commerce, and banned
from sending representatives into space.
Elyssia Fields was clearly a fugitive.
'I'm Alex Ryder,' Alex said.
'I know,' the woman said back, breaking the gaze with which she'd been
fixing him. She patted the corpse on the shoulder, and oddly affectionate
gesture. 'This is - or rather was - Space Trader Henry Bell. We're going to
purloin Mister Bell's coffin. Of all the people who are going to object,
he's going to be the most objectionable. This rust bucket is set up with
holo-projections of our man here, warning of dire consequences for invading
his sanctity. I've turned most of them off, but I expect I've missed a
few.'
'We're going to steal this ship?' Alex said quietly, checking the
flickering control display panel. Witchlight fuel registered enough for a 0.1
light-year jump, hardly sufficient to clear the Tionisla system.
Elyssia stared at him, a half smile on her lips. 'We could pass the
time chatting if you prefer. Plant some flowers, clean the tomb up a
little ...'
'I meant,' Alex said drily, 'How the hell are we going to get away with
it? He found himself staring at the pert features of the humanoid female. The
shadow of gloom and grief that had haunted him for the last few hours seemed
to fade a little. The girl interested him. He added, 'And just why are you
helping me, anyway? Where's Rafe?'
With a quick laugh, Elyssia said, 'Funny thing about Rafe. Wherever you go
in the galaxy, he's always there, a shimmering white holoFac ... but where
he really is ... that's something you're about to find out.' She glanced up
at Alex. 'Why am I helping you? Who says I am? We'll be helping each other,
in fact. You have a father to avenge. I have some things to avenge too.
Maybe I'll tell you about them one day. But without you I can't fly this
ship.'
Suprised, Alex said, 'Cobras were made to be flown by a single pilot.'
'But I'm a single Teorgeon. I'm not supposed to be here. I can fly this
bucket with my eyes closed, but your face fits. Listen, Alex, this craft
wouldn't survive the first attack by a pirate with a peashooter, no matter how
good we are behind the laser button. We need shields, missiles, defences
and cargo space. How d'you think we're going to get them? They don't grow
on silvery moons, you know.'
'Trade for them,' Alex said gloomily, and the vista of his family's
long life trading through the stars swept before his eyes.
Elyssia was right. He couldn't go hunting a Cobra without the proper
equipment, and it would take too long to sort out his inheritance, bearing in
mind the circumstances of his father's death.
He felt utterly overwhelmed with frustration. A part of him wanted to
kill right now. A part of him wanted to rip out onto the space-lanes, and
hunt his father's killer. But the best part of him knew that would be a
recipe for disaster, that patience was called for, that a tactical
appraisal of how he would set about the hunt was essential ... and that a
protected ship was a barest necessity!
'I've got a hundred credits in all the world,' Alex said, referring to
the Galactic Emergency Services loan that he had been given to get him
home.
'It's a start,' Elyssia said. 'It's a start in the trading business. As
Rafe would say, we'll give this old lass an iron ass.' Her face darkened,
though the flickering lights from the console were bright in her eyes.
'Then we'll go to a place that I suspect only Rafe Zetter knows, and we'll
watch a lot of heartache burn up courtesy of some fine shooting by the
both of us. We'll get the ship that put an end to your father. It's a ship
that has a lot to answer for ...'
But she would say no more than that.
For anyone reckoning on beginning a space trading career from scratch the
hardest task is finding a ship. Each planetary system has its floating junk
yards, its second-hand craft, its impounded vessels, eventually auctioned
by the police. Most places advertise for co-pilots, to work without pay
for four years with the guarantee of a ship at the end of it - if they're
still alive.
But ships are expensive, even if they're from the scrap heap.
Alex was impressed and startled by the audacity of the theft that was
being proposed. In response to Rafe's plan, the fugitive, who had been
hiding out in the dead craft for nearly a year, had managed to accumulate the
fuel, food and power to make a brief hyperspace jump to the
interstellar junk yard. All that had been missing was the right co-pilot,
someone who could actually do the trading without arousing suspicion.
They hauled the mummified body of Henry Bell to the small tour-ship and
set the craft adrift.
'Whatever happens now,' Elyssia said as they took positions at the
bridge consoles, 'You're going to get an 'offender' status tag. But Rafe
thinks if you respect the body they'll just post it at Tionisla itself.
Destroy the body and they'll probably notify most worlds in the vicinity, and
we can't afford that. Here goes ...'
On the screen the small tour-ship drifted away, and the crowded
monuments of the cemetery swung past in a dizzying array of bright and
shadowy surfaces. Alex studied the scanners and monitors carefully. The
only had a tiny energy supply to fore and aft screens. A blast or two of
laser power. No missiles of course. The craft was still locked on to the
Dodo space station, whose position was shown by the darting bright point in
the tri-axial grid map.
Slowly the Cobra turned, and began to move gently, silently towards the
edge of the spiral grave-field.
The scanner scanned, and Alex watched it hard, alert and apprehensive
for the tell-tale wink of its moving green light. The duller-colours of the
tombs and stationary craft crowded the scanning screen, moving slowly past.
'There's something I ought to tell you about uncontrolled Witch-Space
jumps ...' Elyssia said, and Alex felt a moment's irritation.
'I already know. Thanks. besides, wherever we're going we're only going a
tenth of a LY. And that's reasonably safe.'
Elyssia sniggered. 'What god or goddess do you believe in?'
'Randomius Factoria ...' Alex muttered.
'Me too ...'
They looked at each other.
Alex laughed and said, 'repeat after me: Lady of Fate, we adore you
...'
'Get us to Rafe's, we implore you ...'
The monuments and monoliths drifted by. The star field widened ahead of
them.
'Nearly there,' Elyssia breathed. 'Get ready for the jump ...'
Alex watched the scanner.
And two bright points of light appeared, moving rapidly towards them.
'Company!' he said, and Elyssia swore loudly.
'Use our laser, and any chance of trading goes. Those are police. They
may not be Vipers, but they're police nevertheless. Damn!'
Ahead of the the starfield was almost clear. the two security craft
veered apart, to close in from the sides. Elyssia began to count down,
finger resting on the simple trigger that would despatch them faraway.
'Ten seconds...'
The Cobra vibrated and whined, unused to activity after many years in
stasis.
'They're closing - fire coming in!'
'Five seconds.'
The Cobra screeched as a laser shot glanced off its hull. The shield
energy, low as it was, vanished! The attacking craft overshot. It's
colleague fired and missed, manoeuvring with difficulty around a large,
henge monument that slowly revolved at the edge of the cemetery.
'Three ...'
'Lining up ... fire coming in!'
The two craft were together again. Their laser fire played in the void
around the Cobra.
'Two ...'
There was a strike, a scream of pain, the vessel almost rocked out of
control. And then -
Star tunnel!
Elyssia flopped back in her chair. Alex cheered. When he looked at the
woman he saw that she was drenched with sweat. When he reached a hand
towards her, his fingers were shaking uncontrollably.
--------------- Now load part 2 -----------------
