Dark Star (10 page)

“You think you can find your girl?”

“I think there are things I need to try,” Pip said. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t stop me. Those people really need to get north as soon as possible. I left plenty of blood up there for the trials.”

Inja considered him a moment. “You planned this.”

Pip grinned and pushed his helmet on his head. “Of course I did: got to have a plan when dealing with you lot, don’t I? Besides, I’m not your responsibility – those people are.”

Inja swung a leg over his bike and revved the engine. “We are all our own responsibility.”

They were in Newperth by early afternoon and Pip headed straight for the Rim. The last time he’d heard from Essie she’d told him the places he should go, and the times she might be there if he should ever need to track her down. So he stood in the shadow of an antiques shop across the road from one of the places, watching the street through the tinted plasglass front from behind a rack of old clocks. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one keeping an eye out for Essie. An operative was also trailing her. He’d noticed her just a moment ago. She was good, unobtrusive, and Pip suspected she might be on Sulawayo’s payroll, but she was also making it hard for him to get to Essie. Odds were she knew what he looked like and if she saw him, things could get very tricky. Being captured by a Helios operative, even one who was part of a rebellion was not on his to-do list. He stayed in the shadows of the clock rack and studied her.

She was maybe thirty, wearing an ordinary pale brown dress, carrying a bag and was rummaging through a sale bin in front of a robotics store like she was an everyday citizen. Pip wasn’t fooled though, because she had on a pair of UV glasses. If you didn’t know what you were looking for, you wouldn’t see it, but he did. They were high tech tracking and surveillance glasses. Everything she saw was recorded on them and sent back to headquarters. She was waiting for Essie to come out of the market two shops down.

He blinked and resisted the urge to rub at his eyes. The ID distorter lenses he was wearing were annoying, but necessary and made it a bit easier for him to skulk around the city. Less need for sticking to the sewers. He’d left Inja with the bikes at the Game Pit. Whether he’d actually stay there and not follow him was another matter, but not one to worry about. Inja could take care of himself.

He stepped out into the heat. This part of the Rim was crowded and people swarmed over the footpath, ducking in and out of the shops. He noticed more of the smaller food traders had closed down now, and tension and desperation felt thicker in the air. Across the road, a block away, two women were shouting abuse at a low level Senate employee as he locked up a recyc water refilling station. The sign on the door read, “Out of Water”. One of the women hurled an empty sipper at the man’s back as he ran off, grabbing the attention of a man who’d been crouching on the pavement. The man stood up and joined the women, shouting at, then pursuing the Senate employee. Pip kept his head down and his back close to the wall.

The market Essie had gone into was still open. It was his best chance of talking to her, but he needed a distraction. A group of grubby kids were playing a game of skittle lids up in the street behind him. He loped closer and gave a single low whistle. A few of the children glanced up and he curled the two forefingers of his right hand and rubbed them against his thumb. There was a moment of fierce pushing and shoving and arguing, then one of the boys scuttled over. He was about six, thin, with matted hair, and one front tooth missing, making him lisp when he spoke.

“Price is two fifty,” he said, bright eyes darting from Pip’s face to his pockets. Pip snorted. “Who you think you’re dealin’ with, midget? Fifty, and a half measure water token for the South East station if you do it good.”

The boy grinned. “Deal.”

Pip slipped a fifty credit and the token into the boy’s hot palm and whispered what he wanted him to do. Then he went to wait on the opposite side of the street to the market. Two minutes later the operative let out an explosion of obscenities and Pip chuckled as he watched the kid sprinting away with her bag. She hesitated, but as he’d suspected there were things in that bag she couldn’t let go of and, with a quick check back at the market, she set off in pursuit.

Pip figured he had about five minutes, seven at most, before the boy dumped the bag and the operative returned.

He raced across the street. The market was a fresh goods one, so it wasn’t large; half of it was filled with recycled clothing sales. He ran down the aisles, scanning for Essie and found her at the back, lining up for fresh noodles. He slid up alongside. “Aunty,” he whispered. She flinched and spun around, eyes wide.

“What the–”

“No time to explain.” Pip dragged her out of line and behind a tall shelf of tinned goods.

“Cut it out, Pipsqueak. What’re you doing here?” Essie wrenched his hand off, then grabbed his shirt jerking him towards her. “Do you know something about the message from Rosie?”

“What?” He stiffened with surprise. “She contacted you?”

Essie let go of him. “I got a short ping last night on my com. No names but I know it was her.”

“What did she say?” Pip’s heart leaped. “Is she okay? Did she say where–”

“Hold up,” Essie hissed, “and keep your voice down! As far as I could figure, she’s okay. But no, she didn’t give her location. I don’t think she knows. They’re not going to give her a map to the place, are they?”

“What exactly did she send?” Pip said.

Essie glanced around, but the only person nearby was an old woman poking around in a meagre selection of dried seaweed at the other end of the aisle. “Here.” She handed him her com. Pip read the message fast, guts churning with fear for Rosie’s safety.

“You see, she says only two of the Enclaves are left,” Essie whispered. “And she’s in one. If she’s right Helios is a hell of a lot more vulnerable than we thought.”

“It makes sense,” Pip said, though the idea of her being in any Enclave belonging to Helios scared him.

“So what do you know of these Enclaves?” Essie asked.

“It’s where they train kids to be operatives. But how could there only be two left? They had them everywhere when I was a kid.”

“The Senate and UEC’s efforts to purge Helios must be more effective than we gave them credit for,” Essie said. “They must really be shaking them out of the system. I wonder if they have any other agents, other than Sulawayo, left in Senate Prime here. I’m going to check into that.”

“They just let you walk into Senate headquarters these days, do they?” Pip raised an eyebrow.

“No.” Essie snatched back her com. “But I still have contacts.”

“It doesn’t help us find her,” Pip said. “Have you talked to Dalton?”

The lines on Essie’s face deepened. “No. I haven’t seen him since before Rosie left. Don’t trust myself. I was tempted to give him a going over after I found out he knew before us about Rosie going. Though she probably talked him into it. I’m sure it was her idea, to stop either of us going after her.”

“Still, it was bloody reckless,” Pip said. “If she thinks Sulawayo will do what she wants, keep her end of the bargain, she’s got it wrong. They won’t play her game.”

“I know. Unless there’s something she hasn’t told any of us. Rosie’s not stupid, she won’t have gone in there with no plan. Riley taught her better than that.”

Pip wasn’t sure. He watched the line of people at the noodle stand elbowing each other to get to the front. One of the women in line gave the man next to her a nasty glare and Pip suddenly remembered a look Cassie had given him. “Wait, Cassie was acting weird the other day, like she knew something I didn’t about why Rosie went – and I have a feeling Curtis knows as well.”

“Like what?”

“Don’t know, but I reckon I can get it out of her.”

“I hate secrets.” Essie seemed pissed. “But Rosie’s like her dad, good at keeping them. Whatever’s going on, we need to figure out where they took her. And now we know how vulnerable Helios is we might have a better chance of getting her out.” She leaned closer. “I’ve already tried my old Elite contacts but the Helios witch-hunt has everyone scared of their own shadow. No one wants to talk and I can’t get in to Senate Prime. Most of my clearances were revoked after Mars.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “They can’t have taken her too far, could they?”

Pip shrugged. “Depends what Enclaves have survived, and I don’t know where any are. When Helios dumped me on Earth, they isolated me from any other actives on purpose. Rosie said in her message it’s not off world though. So she’s still terrestrial, Earth bound, and she hasn’t crossed any borders.”

“Which leaves outside the city,” Essie said. “That’s a lot of ground to cover.”

It was. Too much and the thought panicked him more than he liked. “How about Riley?” Pip said. “Any leads?”

“Not yet, but I’ve had some ideas. Mars for one. He could have decided the best place to hide is somewhere everyone has already looked. And it’s almost impossible to get to at the moment.”

Pip dropped his voice to barely above a whisper. “You know Rosie has the Pantheon list in that implant, that she saw it before?”

“I know, Dalton let me in on it when he told me about her leaving,” Essie said, concern clear on her face. “I don’t like how his dad is on it.”

“We should check up on his dad,” Pip said.

“Easier said than done. He’s well protected. We’ll have to start talking to Dalton again. Keep an eye on Jebediah. I’m thinking Riley might have known where the Pantheon are and he’s gone off after them.” Essie pursed her lips. “We need leads and I might know someone in the Senate who’d be willing to help.”

Pip raised an eyebrow. “Who in the Senate is going to do that?”

“You remember the guy who interrogated Rosie, name’s Whitely? He’s an A-grade arse but he’s so deeply Senate, the emblem is probably tattooed on his heart. He hates Helios. He’d rather see a Feral on the UEC ruling committee than a Helios agent. And he just got promoted. He’s got almost full access at Senate Prime now. I bet he’s been heavily involved in getting Helios out of the system. He’ll know things.”

“But would he help?”

“Maybe, if he’s asked right.”

Pip was deeply wary of that idea, but they needed a way into Prime. It was Senate headquarters and Sulawayo’s cover was as an agent. There had to be something there that might help them find Rosie.

“Okay,” he said. “The gangs have an arrangement with some of the space pirates who run people illegally to the colonies; they’ve got a passenger pick-up soon. I can find out where it is, ask around. If Riley has gone to Mars, someone off the ships might know. He’d probably have bought passage on one of them to get there.”

Essie checked the time on her com. “I’m guessing that operative you pissed off will be back to check on me any moment. Let’s say we meet somewhere again on Saturday night?”

“How about the Game Pit?” Pip said.

“Isn’t that run by the Principality gang? Thought they were drug runners, dangerous.”

“Yeah, but they’re not all bad and they can’t stand Helios. I know the head guy. He’ll let us in.”

Essie gave him a sideways look. “He better. I’ll shake the operative and meet you there; let’s say two am, to be sure.”

“So Sunday morning then?”

“Don’t be smart, Pipsqueak,” Essie said. “You know what I mean.”

Pip grinned. “Sounds good.” He held his fist out and she tapped it with hers.

“Be safe, Pipsqueak.”

“Always am, Aunty.” Pip headed out the back door.

A small spot of darkness wavered in the peripheral vision of Rosie’s left eye and her hands trembled as she switched off the dry blast. Outside the shower cubicle, the other girls were noisy: talking, laughing. A hairbrush hit the floor with a sharp clack and bare feet slapped against the tile. Rosie leaned against the wall and closed her eyes, hoping when she opened them again the dark spot would be gone.

No. Still there, like a shadow, a warning. She should never have tried to use that machine. “Hey, you gonna take all day?” Gillian banged on the screen, making her jump.

She wrapped the towel around herself and opened the door. Immediately, a T-shirt hit her in the face.

“Hurry up and dress,” Gillian said. “Target practice again today. We don’t want to miss breakfast.”

Again? Rosie’s shoulder was still sore from the pulse blast.

They hadn’t spoken about what happened the night before, and Rosie couldn’t figure out what Gillian thought about it, or her. She worried she might have been caught on the surveillance as well – she wasn’t confident that she’d made it back to the cafeteria in time. What would her punishment be? She went with Gillian to the cafeteria, dread filling her and, as soon as they entered, an operative stopped them at the door.

It was the same man who’d questioned them in the bathroom and taken the stylus. He stepped in front of them at the iris and pulled them to one side.

“Operative.” Gillian grinned at him. “How are you this morning?”

He didn’t crack a smile. Other zeroes entering the caf cut furtive glances at them as they headed towards the food line, and Rosie could feel everyone watching and straining to hear.