Curse of the Iris (4 page)

The Comets elbowed one another and pointed to the open hatch of the freight lock, where ten shrouded forms lay on the deck. Standing beside Yana in his formal clothes, Tycho heard the crewers murmur approvingly at the handiwork of the shrouds and the arranging of the bodies.

Then the crewers parted, with an admirable lack of collisions and vile language, as Huff entered the hold, wearing his best bright-yellow tie and carrying a worn book in his hand.

Huff bowed briefly in the direction of the lock, then turned, fixing the crewers with the white spark of his artificial eye. The Comets bowed their heads, a few stragglers belatedly snatching off their own hats or those of their less attentive neighbors.

Huff touched the book to the flesh-and-blood half of his forehead, then began to speak with a care Tycho had rarely heard him use:

“From star stuff were we sprung, to star stuff we return;

As space was your birthright, so shall it be your bier.

To the brotherhood of spacers you have belonged
,

And so drift free forever of surly dirt and air
,

Your tomb the bejewelèd vault of our Creator fair.

May you see His face in the glimmering of distant suns
,

May you know His mind in the blowing of solar winds.

To the brotherhood of spacers you have belonged;

From star stuff were we sprung, to star stuff we return.”

The Comets muttered amens. Huff turned and nodded to Carlo, who walked slowly to the back of the hold and closed the freight lock. All bowed their heads again, and then Carlo hit the release that opened the outer lock door, releasing the shrouded bodies into eternity.

3
TITAN

T
itan's a lot busier than the last time I was here,” Carlo said, peering through the viewports of the
Comet
's gig as it approached the pale orange atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon.

Space stations ringed the moon, and kilometer-long feeder lines connected enormous refineries with giant tankers. Navigation buoys blinked red and green, marking traffic lanes for the gigs, jolly boats, pocket freighters, avisos, ore boats, and sloops coming and going from the icy surface.

“Feels like everything around Saturn's gotten busier,” Yana said from the pilot's seat. They'd left their parents and Huff at Enceladus for the auction, taking the
Comet
's gig for the ninety-minute voyage to Titan. Carlo had reluctantly ceded the controls to his sister, then spent the whole trip telling her how to fly.

“Try not to bump into anything,” he said.

That earned him a scowl from Yana. Tycho, determined to ignore their bickering, tried to count the tankers around them and gave up.

“Ever get the feeling we're in the wrong business?” he asked, fussing with the collar of his spacesuit.

“Depends how you look at it,” Carlo said. “Refining corporations like Huygens-Cassini are mostly partnerships between Earth's government and the Jovian Union.”

“And what does that have to do with anything?” Tycho asked.

“Listen and I'll tell you,” Carlo said. “The Union gets a bigger share of the refinery profits because Titan belongs to us. If that weren't true—if Union ships like ours didn't stand up to Earth—we'd get a smaller share. Or nothing. So we're really in the same business.”

“Except the folks in this part of the business don't get shot at,” Tycho muttered.

“Where's the fun in that?” Yana asked, then held up her hand for silence, listening to the traffic controller's instructions in her earpiece. She shook her head, exasperated.

“They want us to hold here,” she said, tapping the retro rockets. “I don't want to talk about the stupid Jovian Union, though. It just makes me mad.”

“Why's that?” Carlo asked.

“The
Hydra
. It's outrageous that the Union won't give her to us—if it weren't for us, Mox would still be out there grabbing ships.”

“You're
still
upset about that?” Carlo asked. “Let it go already, Yana—it's just bureaucrats doing bureaucrat things. Like I keep telling you, we intercepted the
Hydra
during a Jovian military mission, so someone in the Defense Force thinks she should belong to the military. Plus the Securitat is worried about who'd buy her—imagine if another pirate got hold of her.”

“I won't let it go,” Yana insisted. “Besides, what if we didn't sell the
Hydra
at all?”

Tycho and Carlo looked at each other, then back at their sister.

“There are three of us competing for one ship,” Yana said. “But what if there were two ships? Or three? Then we could all be captains and take more prizes.”

“It doesn't work that way,” Tycho said. “The family is the captain, and the captain is the ship, and—”

“—and the ship is the family,” Yana said. “I know that old saying by heart, you know. But
why
is it that way? Think about it. Every generation, one Hashoone becomes captain of the
Comet
, and the others wind up twiddling their thumbs dirtside. That's a total waste. Why are we limited to one ship as a family, when we could do so much more with a fleet of them?”

“Okay, but what happens when you and Tycho both intercept a fat prize in the Cybeles?” Carlo asked. “Do you take turns? Flip a currency chip, maybe? Or do you wind up shooting at each other?”

Yana looked surprised.

“Tyke's my brother,” she said. “He's annoying, but I wouldn't shoot him.”

“I love you too, sis,” Tycho said.

“What if that other Hashoone isn't your brother, but your cousin?” Carlo asked. “Or your sister-in-law's sister? Or your third cousin once removed? And once Hashoones start shooting each other in the Cybeles, what happens back home? Are we shooting each other in Port Town? In Darklands?”

“We wouldn't—wait, Traffic Control's talking to me. Finally. We're cleared to descend. Get ready to vent the atmosphere.”

They donned their helmets and carefully checked one another's seals. Air would burn if it mixed with Titan's nitrogen-rich atmosphere, so ships without airlocks were required to vent their interiors to space before descending to the surface.

“I get why what you say was true in pirate days, Carlo,” Tycho said. “But we're privateers now—we work for the Jovian Union. Couldn't the Defense Force use a fleet of Hashoone ships, instead of just one?”

Carlo hesitated.

“I guess they could,” he said. “But these are
our
traditions—we're the ones who have wanted it done this way. Maybe the Union could use a Hashoone fleet, but who says we want them to have one?”

The gig began to shake as it entered the outer envelope of Titan's atmosphere.

“If this is about what
we
want, why is the
Hydra
still in dry dock?” Tycho asked.

“The one has nothing to do with the other,” Carlo said.

“I'm not so sure,” Yana said. “Just like I'm not so sure the Union is really on our side. Remember back before you made bridge crew, when you were down the ladder learning the spacer's trade?”

“I'd rather not think about it, but yes,” Carlo said.

“Well, you played cards with the belowdecks crewers, right?” Yana asked.

“Never,” Carlo said.

Yana and Tycho glanced at each other. They'd both loved playing cutthroat games of poker, whist, and cát tê with off-duty crewers in the mess or the wardroom.

“Maybe you should have,” Yana said. “Belowdecks, they say every game has a sucker—and if you can't figure out who it is, it's you.”

Kraken Station was a cluster of habitation domes sprawled on the shores of the Kraken Mare, not far from Titan's north pole. Yana set the gig down on the landing field with a bump that bounced them in their seats and caused Carlo to raise an eyebrow.

“Oh, like all your touchdowns are perfect,” she retorted. “I forgot to correct for the thicker atmospheric pressure, is all.”

“Today's bump, tomorrow's crash,” Carlo said, looking down at his mediapad. “You're just lucky Mom wasn't here to note it for the Log.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Yana said, peering at the diagnostics readouts. “It's 200 below outside, so they ought to have a cold jump-pop. I'm dying for one. And maybe some fruit.”

“It's not a sightseeing trip,” Carlo chided his sister as Tycho headed down the gangway. “Keep your eyes open—there have been reports of pirate activity around these outposts.”

“Good. I could use a little excitement,” Yana said, marching down the gangway and nearly plowing into Tycho where he stood at the foot of the ramp, staring up at the sky.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“I've never been outside and not been able to see stars,” Tycho said. “It's weird.”

Yana looked up into the thick orange haze above their heads.

“It is strange,” she admitted. “Wait a minute . . . TYCHO! Get back in the ship!”

“What's wrong?” Tycho asked. Then he felt it too—a spatter of liquid on his helmet's faceplate, followed by another, and then several more. He retreated hastily to the shelter of the gig's hull, where Yana was scrubbing at her helmet and checking her suit seals.

“My suit's fine,” she said. “But I can't figure out what's leaking. A fuel line? Coolant?”

Laughter crackled over their suit radios, and Carlo brushed past them, a carryall over his shoulder. Before either of them could stop him, he strode down the gangplank and out onto the landing pad.

“The
sky
is what's leaking,” Carlo said, turning with a grin. He spread his arms as thick droplets bounced off his helmet and suit and splashed on the landing pad. “It's just methane—it won't hurt you. I forgot you two hayseeds have never seen rain.”

The main airlock for Kraken Station cycled every half hour. First sirens and flashing lights alerted the Huygens-Cassini workers on the landing pad that it was time to grab a place inside the lock. A minute later, the huge outer door shut and pumps vented away Titan's atmosphere, leaving a vacuum inside. Then air was pumped into the lock and the inner door opened, allowing the workers to remove their helmets and enter the station. Fifteen minutes later, the process was reversed.

The second Tycho took off his helmet, he wished he hadn't: the interior of Kraken Station smelled like a nose-wrinkling combination of fuel and sewage.

Japhet Lumbaba, the son of the
Lucia
's captain, was waiting for them by Huygens-Cassini's offices. He was dark and slim, almost fragile looking, and dressed in a faded red coverall, with a helmet and thick work gloves slung over one shoulder. He shook hands gravely with Carlo and Tycho, bowed slightly to Yana, and led them deeper into the warren of shops and shelters. They threaded their way through crowds of burly, bearded men in similar coveralls, suits ornamented with a bewildering assortment of meters and probes and graspers and wands. Mixed in with them were more men and women in clothes more suited for working at a desk.

Refinery workers and pixel pushers, Tycho guessed. Both groups had hard eyes and looked like they were in a hurry.

But then the Hashoones passed a tavern whose holographic sign had decayed into a smudge of light. A knot of men standing outside caught Tycho's eye. They dripped with tattoos and earrings and wore carbines on their belts, with bandoliers crisscrossed across their chests. Several had the same patchs on the shoulders of their jumpsuits: the stylized face of a wolf, white on a black background.

Lumbaba tugged at Tycho's elbow.

“Bad men. Do not attract their attention.”

“So you work in the refinery, Mr. Lumbaba?” Yana asked.

“Yes,” Lumbaba said. “I analyze complex compounds. It is not so different from my father's prospecting. Except I do not have to leave Titan.”

“How old were you when your father left?” Tycho asked as they entered an elevator and descended below the surface.

“Two,” Lumbaba said. “I do not remember him. My mother swore he would return, that he always had before.”

“Does your mother know the news?” Tycho asked.

“Yes,” Lumbaba said. “She had the courts declare him dead years ago, because the insurance claim would allow me to attend school. But she never believed it. Not until we received your message.”

Tycho nodded, not sure what to say. The elevator doors opened, and Lumbaba inclined his head, indicating they should go first.

“When I was a boy, I believed her stories,” he said quietly. “Every day I told myself that this would be the day my father made contact, to say he was coming home. But eventually I realized it wasn't true. . . . Our home is right this way.”

A dull metal door slid aside with a groan, and the Hashoones stepped into a little room with bare metal walls. A cabinet and a cooking unit with a single burner sat in the corner. There were plastic stools scattered around a low table and a couch against the wall, between two closed doors. A green-and-gold blanket covered most of the couch. Those were the only colors in the room except for the dull orange glow of a portable heater.