Death Drop (70 page)

He lifted his cigar to his lips with thick-knuckled fingers, and the end glowed brighter as he sucked in through his mouth. His brimmed hat was cocked to the side over one spiracle, and a ring of smoke puffed from the other blowhole on his head. Fellini’s skin was dark gray with a perpetual wet sheen that made the flesh-red interior of his mouth all the more vivid and horrid in contrast.

“So,” he said in his Turillian accent, “we finally meet in the flesh, Ghost—or should I call you Dezmara? You don’t mind if I call you Dezmara, do you? Ghost seems so melodramatic now that I know who you are.”

“What’ve you done with Simon and Diodojo?” she said as anger chased away the fog clouding her senses.

“Hahaha! Always to business, eh? Even when you’re helpless. I love your style, Dezmara!” Fellini took another long pull on his cigar as he shook his head in amusement.

“Who says I’m helpless?” Dezmara said in a threatening tone. “Pretty ballsy of you to sit in the same room as me without tying me up, Leo. Tell me, are you taking bets on how long it’ll take me to cross this table and kill you with my bare hands?”

“Oh, my dear,” Fellini said with cruel cynicism, pulling the hand that wasn’t occupied with the ritual of smoking from under the table and setting a pistol down in front of him. The barrel was aimed at her chest and his finger was on the trigger. “As usual, you overestimate your own abilities while underestimating everyone else. You walked right into this little trap as expected, but not too long ago you were betting your entire fortune on your skills as a runner without the slightest clue you’d end up on the other side of my gun!”

The left side of her chest felt like it was on fire. Dezmara looked down to find two symmetrical holes in the front of her flight suit, the skin underneath burned and tender.

“Ah, yes, Mac’s access box was a nice touch, don’t you think? More like a shock box, eh? And of course, you are in the habit of trusting anyone with a sad story about losing his home and family, aren’t you?” Dezmara looked down at the circular edges of singed fabric where the prongs from the security device had made contact with her skin and electrocuted her. Fellini’s fat face was stretched wide in a grin that showed his rounded, triangular teeth, and he looked like he was about to fall out of his chair with glee at any moment. “My dear, you were just getting—what’s the expression?—too big for your britches. Runners have always been the biggest draw in Trillis, but your winning streak had wrecked the odds for far too long. So I set in motion the gears to topple your little monopoly, and you played along exactly as I planned!”

“Can’t imagine it all went
exactly
as planned,” Dezmara said sarcastically. “I’m sure you thought you’d make a mint betting it all on Rilek and the
Lodestar.
” Dezmara gave him a ‘screw you’ smile that was made all the more satisfying as the grin on Fellini’s face sagged back into his baggy cheeks.

“A mere pittance compared to what I stand to make once this deal is done.” He stubbed out his stogie in an ashtray on his left and then leaned back in his chair, confidently removing his hand from the gun so he could press his fingertips together.

“So what the shit is so valuable you gotta dupe me into stealing for you and then kidnap my friends? The job’s not done, is it, Fellini? You need me to fly whatever’s in those four cargo containers somewhere, and I’m the only pilot in the universe that can do it, right? And you—you sonofabitch—you’re using my friends as leverage. What is it? What’s in those containers, you bastard?”

“Your ignorance is amusing!” Fellini laughed. “I suppose it’s time to introduce my business partner; although, I’ll warn you now, it’s going to…
sting
a little.” The shit-eating grin was back on Fellini’s face as the cover to a hidden rectangular compartment on the table slid open in front of him. He jabbed a finger into the recess, and the console responded with a beep. The doors at the back of the room slowly drifted open, and an all-too-familiar form swaggered through from the other side.

Dezmara felt like her heart had been ripped from its fleshy cradle in her chest and dropped into her stomach just so she could vomit its cracking form onto the glossy, wooden table in time for the entire universe to see it shatter into a million and one pieces. He was dressed in strange clothes she had never seen him wear before. A large hat made of regal purple with golden trim perched on top of his head. His shirt was cut like a sailor’s, but instead of the usual plain white, the little she could see above his purple-and-gold trimmed vest had the iridescent shine of pearls. His jacket was made of the heavy material used to stave off the salty spray of the sea and it hung down to his knees. Of all the people to be standing in front of her now, of all the people responsible for the absolute hell she’d been through, Felix Grinnik was the last one she expected to walk through those doors; after all, he was supposed to be dead.

Felix was tall, though he walked with a slight hunch. His build was slender except for unnaturally broad shoulders that were no doubt built by years of laboring aboard ships. His skin was a brilliant green and covered in scales as rough and hard as the surface of any desolate, rock-laden planet ever charted. The scaly armor even surrounded his enormous, bulging eyes, which now rolled forward and held Dezmara in their yellow gaze. A huge horn extended from the tip of his snout and ended in a sharp point. His mouth was set in a knavish grin that curled around the sides of his head, and he half walked, half hopped awkwardly past the back of Fellini’s seat. When he finally cleared the table and chairs to her right, Dezmara saw the reason for his unusual gait. His left leg was missing below the knee, and the nub of his stump, concealed behind purple trousers stitched closed at the wound site, hovered over a metallic ring that floated above the ground. The device had thick, cylindrical spines encircling it and moved in lockstep, with a mechanical clicking sound, as Felix limped into the open and then stopped.

“Dezmara,” Felix said, “it’s so good to see you again after all these years!” Dezmara used to think his voice was mesmerizing, all soft consonants and long, rolling R’s, but now his words were like a thousand slivers of sharp metal in her ears.

“Felix,” Dezmara’s voice quivered, “what the fuck is going on?”

“Come, now, there’s no need for such vulgarities!” Felix said in a paternal tone.

“The holy shit there isn’t!” Dezmara shouted. “TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON! How are you here?! Where’s Simon and Diodojo?! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?!” Dezmara’s vocal chords strained and rattled in her throat as she screamed with uncontrollable anger and a sea of hurt rolling dark and empty inside her. Fellini lit another cigar with a pleased look on his face and turned his head from Dezmara to Felix in excited anticipation.

“Ah, Dezmara. You were always such a smart girl, I thought that it would’ve been obvious by now, but I suppose you
have
been through quite a bit, so I’ll be blunt. You’re here because you’re Human.” The word slammed into Dezmara like a cargo container dropped from the stratosphere, and her eyes blazed through tears so hot with rage she wouldn’t have been surprised if they melted the legs on her flight suit where they fell in big plops. Her mind was racing with questions and theories, and she tried to sort out the most likely scenario. She decided to follow the one closest to her heart and see if she could get Felix to divulge any useful information about Simon and Diodojo.

“Bullshit!” she spat. “You tortured Simon and he told you I was Human, and now you have a little bonus on top of whatever the hell’s
really
going on. Something to do with secret cargo in the four containers you had me hijack for you?” She raised her eyebrows expectantly and waited for either of the men to give away their bluff. Instead, she got a much different reaction.

“HAHAHAHA! I did not
torture
your friend!” Felix bent at the waist as he laughed, adding to his usual hunch, which brought his entire torso almost parallel to the floor, before standing straight again and placing his hands on his hips. He arched backward and sucked in a big gulp of air.

“Then you and that dirty sonofabitch in Luxon were in it together for what—a lousy one hundred thousand?!”

“The portmaster?” Felix said. “He was just a common thief. Another nobody in the universe trying to gain fame and fortune by toppling the mighty Ghost! I’m afraid all he wanted was your ship and its cargo—oh, and to kill you, of course. But I wouldn’t worry about him; he chose the wrong time to make his play, and it cost him his life, I’m afraid.” Felix’s eyes flashed murder for a moment and then returned to their usual, jovial brightness.

“You killed the portmaster?”

“And opened the gate to release you,” Felix said as if she owed him a favor.

“The poster at Buego’s in Luxon and the men at the bar talking about a Human—it was
you
all along! How did you”

“I’m a duster, my dear, an’ I’ve been around for a very long time. I knew you were Human the moment they brought you on board from that prize near Iljin.”

“Prize?” Dezmara said. “You’re a filthy, goddam pirate!” Everything clicked in her mind, and she rolled her head back on her shoulders with a look of disappointed epiphany. “You’re the captain of the
Triton
!” Felix removed his hat and swept forward in an arrogant bow.

“And all that shit about being a runner, getting me my own ship, an’ pretending you were my friend—what the hell was that all about?!”

“Well, I admit, at first I was curious. I’d never seen a Human in the flesh—no one has in quite some time—and I wanted to see what your species could do. I thought, perhaps I could use you to strengthen my crew if you proved to have any extraordinary abilities. I must say, I was disappointed when it turned out all you could do was fight and fly.
I
have been doing both far better than anyone in the time of the Durax for longer than you can imagine. So I turned to thinking about alternate sources of profit from your discovery, and the choice was obvious: turn you in and collect the reward. But then I realized something. Your genuine lack of memory and your inconsolable desire to find your own kind was too rich a proposition to pass; after all, why turn in one Human when you can cash in on perhaps an entire lost colony or secret world!

“I tried to get you to lead me to them while still part of my crew, asking you questions, trying to get you to remember where you were from, the faces of your friends; and then, of course, there was the purchase of your own ship. I thought if you felt like you were alone to pursue your kind, you would remember where they were. But your motivation waned as time went on. Like the fire that raged in your eyes when you first woke up from cryo, your burning desire to know was slowly dying, the more comfortable you became.”

Dezmara shook her head in disgust and clutched the bottom of her chair in a crushing grip as she recalled the hours-long sessions of confiding in Felix and his seemingly genuine interest in helping her. It was all a lie.

“So I set you free, staging my death in the run to Xilun, taking away the only sense of belonging you had and fueling your passion to find more Humans!”

“You murdering sonofabitch! You killed all those runners!”

“Well, technically, my crew killed them, but yes, I gave the order. It was necessary. Covering up the
Serian’s
escape from one ship was hard enough, but keeping the ruse from seven other captains and their crew would’ve been impossible. Of course, the one was allowed to escape to tell the tale, and I see he did a wonderful job!” Felix was enjoying this, and as Dezmara’s face twisted with deepening despair, his scaly lips curled higher and higher at their corners.

“So, what, Felix, did something go wrong? Did your little plan not go quite as expected? I mean, I don’t see any other Humans sitting at the table!” She had struck a sour chord with the pirate captain, and his smile flattened until his face was expressionless. The corner of her mouth twitched up in her signature, smart-assed smirk. The annoying grin on Fellini’s face had vanished as well, and he cleared his throat uncomfortably as he pretended to hack on cigar fumes.

“What can I say?” Felix said with a little less bravado than before. “You’re a good pilot. Much better than I gave you credit for.”

“Meaning?!” Dezmara prodded.

The rough lids around Felix’s eyes narrowed, and he stared at Dezmara with frustration and a small trace of jealousy. He held the look for several moments, and the room was silent except for the inhalation of air through the bony extrusion on Fellini’s head and the soft crackle of incinerating leaves inside his cigar.

“For years I tried to follow as you searched galaxy after galaxy, but I couldn’t risk getting too close without raising your suspicions. Keeping a comfortable distance wasn’t enough to track a ship as fast as the Zebulon; you would soon vanish, only to resurface again when the payoff and the port was right in whatever run was offered by my friends here in Trillis.” Felix motioned toward Fellini with a backward brush of his hand.

“So you got tired of waiting for me to find the Humans, and you went in with shit-bag here to set me up—congratu-fucking-lations! NOW WHERE ARE MY FRIENDS, FELIX?!”

“But,” Grinnik continued as if he hadn’t heard Dezmara’s last question, “I still had hope your memory would come back and you would find your home”

“You mean your payday, don’t you?” Dezmara interrupted.

“So I hired a tracker to inform me of your condition and your whereabouts. I have to say, it was much easier from then on. But as time went by, I came to realize that you weren’t going to find any more Humans. You’d been roaming the universe for eight long years and you were no closer to the answers about your past than when I found you. At first I was disappointed, and I considered having you killed for all of my trouble. One hundred thousand tolocs is, after all, not much money when the entirety of space is your chest for the plundering. But then something rather simple, yet very powerful, occurred to me: what could be more valuable than an item that is truly the last of its kind? The Durax haven’t been able to track down any Humans in hundreds of thousands of years—even with all their powers and ravenous devouring of world after world—and your fruitless searches seem to verify the fact that
you are the last Human in existence
.