Curse of the Iris (22 page)

Mavry opened his mouth to protest further, then thought better of it and just waited.

“You can go now, Lieutenant,” DeWise said. “There's no need to detain these people. I'll deal with them.”

“But our orders are to defend the security perimeter—”

“And you have, most admirably,” DeWise said. “I will take it from here, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Csonka said sullenly. He nodded to the two marines, then followed them back up the ladder.

“I didn't catch your name,” Mavry said.

“That's because I didn't say it,” DeWise replied.

“I'm going to take a wild guess that you work for the Securitat,” Mavry said.

“Correct—fortunately for you. Given the current hubbub, it might have taken some time to sort things out in detention. And the JDF might wonder whether letters of marque should be given to people who try to con their way past their own military officers.”

“We've done no such thing,” Yana said.

“Of course not. Just like that's not underwater equipment behind you, and you're not heading for the Sidon Flexus, once the home of a pirate named Josef Unger.”

Yana gasped, then tried to turn that into a cough. Tycho refused to look at DeWise.

“Lieutenant Csonka doesn't know it, but we're conducting an operation beneath the Sidon Flexus as we speak,” DeWise said. “Nice try, but this little expedition of yours is over.”

“You've no right to that treasure!” Yana sputtered. “It's ours!”

“Yana, quiet,” Carlo said.

“Perhaps it shouldn't have been left in an ocean to be salvaged, then,” DeWise said.

“It's
not
salvage!” Tycho said.

“Tycho—” Mavry began, then gave up trying to contain his rebellious children.

“You don't understand,” Tycho said. “The Ice Wolves know where it is too. They'll be coming.”

“I hope so,” DeWise said, inclining his head up the ladderwell. “I've got a cruiser full of Jovians spoiling for a fight. And now, if you'll excuse me, I have a treasure to recover.”

DeWise vanished up the ladder, and the hatch shut behind him. Mavry sank into the pilot's seat as the cruiser disengaged its docking port. When the warship was clear, Mavry powered up the gig's engines and slowly turned back toward Callisto.

“So that went well,” he said.

“I was right about the salvage rules, though. Wasn't I, Dad?” Tycho asked.

“Tyke, honestly,” Carlo protested. “It doesn't matter now. We're beaten. We did our best, but the Securitat got there first.”

“At least it was them and not the Ice Wolves,” Yana said.

“We're
not
beaten,” Tycho said. “And we're not going to let them get away with this.”

“You're right, we're not,” Mavry said. “Hang on—I'm inputting a new course.”

Carlo looked at his father in astonishment. “Where are we going now?”

“Io. Let the Securitat dig up the treasure—that's the hard part anyway. It'll make it more satisfying when they have to hand it over to us in court.”

“We're going after Oshima Yakata's share of the Collective,” Tycho said with a grin.

“Right,” Mavry said. “When you've had a bad run at the card table, what do you do?”

“Walk away before you lose it all,” Carlo said.

“That's one strategy,” Mavry said. “Myself, I double down.”

Mavry had been born on Io, but none of his children had ever been there, and as the gig neared the moon, they fell silent, awed by what they saw through the viewports.

The innermost of Jupiter's large moons, Io was a dark sphere against the bright bulk of the massive gas giant beyond, with volcanoes blooming red and orange on the face kept eternally turned away from Jupiter. It was a perilous but profitable place to live, rich in minerals and gases belched up from the molten interior.

The gig descended through a nimbus of crackling light that stretched out into space around the moon. Flashes of green and blue followed pulses of yellow and white, and now and then a fork of brilliant purple energy crackled for kilometers across space.

“Jupiter's magnetic field is so strong that it strips the atmosphere of dust and gas particles, which then pick up a charge in orbit,” Mavry explained. “Makes for an impressive light show, but it also plays havoc with your instruments. We'll have to have everything recalibrated when we get back to Callisto.”

As they passed through Io's thin outer atmosphere, ball lightning skittered eerily across the viewports and particles of dust rattled against the hull. The landscape below was a yellow waste, pockmarked by canyons and mountains that heaved themselves up from the plains.

“Oshima lives on the edge of the Colchis Regio,” Yana said, poking at her mediapad. “Looks like about an hour from Galileo Station by grav-sled.”

“Yeah, a bunch of mineral hounds and gas extractors live out that way,” Mavry said. “Crazy coots, every one of them. Now listen. When I knew her, Oshima was a difficult woman—suspicious of everybody, quick to take offense, and able to hold a grudge for decades. And that was on a good day. I doubt a dozen years in the Io outback has made her better company.”

They could see the lights of Galileo Station below—a cluster of habitation domes built on stilts above Io's surface. Mavry brought the gig down in a graceful arc, firing the retro rockets so they barely felt the bump of the landing skids.

“Smooth landing, Dad,” Carlo said, sounding impressed and a little jealous.

Mavry just waggled his fingers and smiled.

“Now then, environment suits,” he said. “And bring emergency flares and a communicator—your mother's going to be mad enough about this little excursion as it is. If I get us marooned in a grav-sled with a bad case of sulfur burn . . . well, it won't be pretty.”

Carlo removed a box of flares from the gig's equipment locker and passed them to Tycho.

“Should we bring carbines, Dad?” he asked.

Mavry hesitated. “Yeah, we'd better. But only as a last resort.”

They suited up and crossed the landing platform, grit pinging off their visors, then descended in a rickety elevator that sounded like it might plummet down its shaft and embed itself in the frost-covered plains below.

Inside, Mavry signaled that they could remove their helmets. Yana wrinkled her nose: Galileo Station's air was a foul brew of sulfur mixed with an acrid whiff of burned electronics.

The station wasn't much easier on the eyes. Everything was rusty and looked ill kept. The people were hunched and sallow, with darting, suspicious eyes—though at least there was no sign of burly spacers with thick beards and Saturnian accents. They descended to the lower levels, rented a battered grav-sled from a surly clerk, and were soon driving across the Colchis Regio toward the anvil-topped mountain known as Prometheus.

Filaments of color danced in the skies: streamers of gold and silver, purple and green, that swelled and then melted away.

“I can't decide—is that pretty or scary?” Tycho asked.

“A little of both,” Yana said after a moment. “I think I'll be glad I saw it once I'm far away from here.”

“Shh, you two,” Mavry said. “We're getting close.”

Carlo checked the navigation unit and guided his father to a ridge on the lowermost slopes of Prometheus, where their headlights revealed shallow ruts left by wheels. They came to an old metal sign that had been rammed into the ground at a cockeyed angle. It was pitted and corroded but still readable.

NO VISITORS

INTRUDERS WILL BE SHOT

“Well, we know we've got the right house,” Mavry said.

A flash of lightning revealed a small homestead on the next rise—a low building that looked like it had begun life as a bulk freighter's shipping container.

The grav-sled was halfway to the little house when something pinged off the windshield, leaving a crescent-shaped nick in the thick glass. Mavry hit the brakes as their suit radios crackled to life.

“Turn around and get lost,” said a croaking voice over the speaker. “Do it right now. Or I'll shoot you all.”

“Take it easy, Oshima,” Mavry said. “We just need to talk to you for a minute. Hold your fire—we're getting out of the sled.”

Mavry shut down the filtration system and popped the grav-sled's doors, releasing a puff of air that instantly froze into a coating of rime on the seats and the Hashoones' enviro suits. Then he got slowly out of the vehicle, keeping his hands raised, and inclined his head to indicate that his children should do the same.

Another flash of lightning revealed a figure about twenty meters ahead, wearing an enviro suit and staring down the barrel of an antique rifle. The figure picked its way across the frozen plain, rifle still raised, and stopped about three meters away. The Hashoones' ears were filled with the sound of labored breathing.

Oshima Yakata was small and bent—Tycho was pretty sure her environment suit was a child's model. But her black eyes were hard behind her helmet's faceplate, and her gloved hands were steady on the rifle.

“Who are you?” Oshima demanded.

“It's Mavry Malone, Oshima. It's been a long time.”

The dark eyes widened.

“And these are my children,” Mavry said. “Carlo, Tycho, and Yana.”

“Your children? That means they're Hashoones.”

“Yes. Diocletia is their mother. You're not going to shoot us, are you? Because you're making me nervous.”

“Shame to have Hashoones in my sights after all these years and not pull the trigger,” Oshima said, but lowered the rifle.

“Thank you. Now, can we go inside and discuss things like reasonable people?”

“No Hashoone sets foot in my house. Whatever you've got to say, you can say it out here.”

“All right. Go ahead, Carlo.”

Carlo stepped tentatively forward.

“Ma'am, have you heard of the Collective?” he asked. “It was a group of Jupiter pirates formed in your father's day, after the raid on the
Isis
.”

“Of course I know what the Collective is,” Oshima snapped. “Think I'm old, eh? That I don't remember? My father, Blink, was one of them, along with Johannes and Josef Unger and Orville Moxley and Muggs Saxton. Oh, I remember just fine. Now let me guess—you want my share of it.”

“Well, purely for the historical novelty,” Carlo stammered. “The treasure's gone forever, of course—just a fairy tale told belowdecks. We're interested because—”

Oshima's laugh was a humorless grating bark.

“You're a liar, boy—and a bad one, too. The treasure's gone, eh? Is that why my father's old communicator lit up with a message saying Johannes's scanner had been removed from the Bank of Ceres? And is that why the Securitat has spooks drilling through the ice on Europa? Oh, yes, I know about that, too. Go home, Hashoones. Go home and watch the Securitat bring up the treasure. Go home and wish Josef and that old swindler Johannes had found a better place to hide it.”

“Swindler?” Tycho said. “It's the government that's doing the swindling! They're stealing that treasure from all of us, you included.”

Oshima brayed laughter.

“Such a shame—I could really spruce up the place. It's only what you Hashoones deserve. My father hated Johannes, did you know that? He hated him because he cheated everyone he ever met out of whatever he could. Just like you're trying to cheat me. Your family's never had a trace of honor—not since Gregorius's day.”

“Who are you to talk of honor, you old witch?” demanded Yana as forks of lightning painted the plains a sickly purple. “Where was your honor at 624 Hektor? Do you remember that day, old woman? The day you betrayed your countrymen?”

Snarling with fury, Oshima raised the rifle and pointed it at Yana's face. Tycho's ears filled with static as Oshima screamed at Yana, Mavry tried to say something soothing, Carlo yelled, “Stop!” and Tycho himself made some desperate noise of protest. But Yana held her ground, gloves balled into fists, staring back at Oshima.

“Go ahead, if you've got the guts. Wait, let me make it easier for you.”

She turned around.

“Now you can shoot me in the back. That's what you're used to, isn't it?”

Oshima's hands began to tremble. She lowered the rifle, letting the butt rest on the icy ground.

“You stupid girl,” she said, in a voice that sounded more tired than angry.

Tycho looked at Carlo and saw his brother's fright and disbelief—an expression he knew mirrored his own.

“All lies,” Oshima said. “Yes, I survived the battle. Yes, my ship was undamaged. It was undamaged because I saw what was happening and fled for my life. Do you know why I was able to run, while everyone else's engines misfired?”

“Because you're a traitor,” Yana said. “Just like Thoadbone Mox.”

“No. I was able to run because I never installed the software program we were given—the one that was going to protect us against the jammers we'd been warned about, but shut down our systems instead. The program that was given to us by Thoadbone Mox and Huff Hashoone.”

“You're lying!” Tycho exclaimed. “Our grandfather had nothing to do with that! Our ship was damaged, and he was nearly killed!”

Oshima just smiled.

“Ask your father if I'm lying.”

The Hashoones' eyes turned to Mavry.

“Yes, Huff helped distribute the program and told the others to install it,” he said, the words emerging slowly and unwillingly.

“What?” Tycho gasped.

“But that's because he was tricked—tricked by your pal Mox,” Mavry said to Oshima. “The two of you knew what Huff didn't—that Earth saboteurs had hidden a virus in the program. But Mox was smart enough to install it on his own ship, so he'd look innocent if something went wrong. You didn't even have the guts to do that. When Earth's destroyers failed to kill the rest of us on the first pass, like they were supposed to, you got scared and ran.”