The Rift Rider (10 page)

By the time they
reached Het City, the two moons had dropped below the horizon, and the planet's
giant star hung in their place. The sky was a hazy carpet of reds and pinks.
The city below it was somewhat less spectacular. It crawled out of the desert
like a grey, angular, multi-limbed beast that looked on the verge of losing its
fight fo survival.

To the rear of
the city, four gleaming spires emerged, like jewelled spikes, from what at that
distance appeared to be giant rock, but on closer inspection was a series of
ring walls. At their centre stood the palace of Lady Ori, its splendid wealth
safely defended from the rest of the city.

The temperature
had risen with the rising star. The two riders came to a stop. The climbed out
of their suxo suits. The tang of the escaping body odour brought a grimace to
Charlie’s face. They packed the furs away in the holdall strapped to the back
of Bei's ride.

Charlie shifted
uncomfortably on his seat. He badly needed to take a shit.

He told Bei and
the blue man laughed. "You'll have to wait until you get to the palace.
You're liable to catch something nasty if you pull your trousers down out
here."

Charlie moaned.

Bei looked out
across the city and at the palace walls. "Once we're inside the walls, we
talk face to face. I don't want to arouse any suspicion. Understood?"

Charlie nodded.

As they
negotiated their rides around the derelict, rubbish-filled streets of Het City,
Charlie tried not to think about the pressure building up in his bowels. He
hoped they would get to the palace soon. He doubted Lady Ori would want him if
he walked in with soiled trousers.

 
The turen they passed were a sorry,
ragged, miserable bunch. They looked like the cast of a zombie movie. Only
these zombies were multi-coloured, occasionally furred and too downbeat to
bother frothing at the mouth. Charlie turned his head away, focusing on the
road. A guilty feeling filled his belly, though he could not say why. These
aliens have got nothing to do with me, he told himself.

Once they got
within a mile of the palace, the broken streets widened and straightened into
tree-lined boulevards, filled with smart, healthy looking aliens, shopping and
idling away their days in cafes. The sudden change in environment shocked him.

Charlie saw no
beggars here. And the hundreds of flowers planted alongside the pavements or
dangling villa walls drowned out the smell of decay and shit that permeated the
rest of the city.

"This is
where the Lady Ori's inner circle live," Bei said.

On the
outskirts, the local transport had been in the form of wheeled carts hauled by six-legged,
humped cow-like animals. However, inside the inner boulevards Charlie saw an
array of flying vehicles. Bei called them hovercrafts. But, in Charlie's
opinion, the name hovercraft did them no justice at all. They looked like flying
BMWs.

The closer they
got to the palace walls, the taller they loomed over them. They had been
constructed out of boulders that could have come straight from Stonehenge. In
the middle of the wall stood a gate, beautifully crafted, golden and guarded by
a dozen heavily armed men and women.

"Mercenaries,"
Bei said. "Let me do the talking."
 

Bei and Charlie
powered down their rides, coming to a stop in front of the palace guards. They
greeted the two riders with raised barrels and pissed off looks.

"We're here
to see Lady Ori," Bei said, throwing one of them his identification card.
"Tell her Bei Lowaiki has come to pay off his debt."

A guard caught
the ID card and disappeared through the crowd. Charlie stood on tip toes so he
could see where the man went. The guard passed through the outer gate and kept
walking until he came to a great hulk of a man sitting in front of the last set
of gates.

The huge man reminded
Charlie of the bouncers he had grown up trying to outwit as an under-aged
clubber. He had a head like a fridge. It sat upon a hulking chest, the man
appearing to have no need for neck. A pair of monstrous pecs hovered over a
great, round belly. It was a gut any beer drinking man would have been proud
of.

The
square-headed guard stood up, revealing freakishly out of proportion legs. They
were as thick as tree trunks but accounted for barely a quarter of the man's
total height. It was as if someone had chopped his legs off at the knees,
cleaved his feet off and reattached them to the stumps.

He waddled,
duck-like, through the opening gates, and stopped in front of Bei and Charlie.
A thick purple cigar protruded from the corner of his mouth. He rolled it into
the centre of his mouth, took a deep draw of it, exhaled a plume of orange
smoke through his nose and rolled it back to its spot in the corner.

In his hand, he
held a chunky walkie-talkie. When he spoke into it, the fat cigar jiggled
lightly. "Your Ladyship, we have a Bei Lowaiki here asking for an
audience." A pause while he listened to the response. "That's right.
Smooth looking customer with a high opinion of himself." He ran cold, dark
eyes over Charlie's face. "He's got a young gentleman with him. You would
like him." Another pause. Then, he slid the walkie-talkie back into the
holder on his belt. "Follow me," he said, handing Bei back his
identification card.

"Wait,"
Bei said. "We're not leaving our rides out here. No offence, but I don't
trust any of you mercenaries with these classics."

"Go get
them," Square Head grunted. "But walk them in. I don't want any funny
business."

They pushed the
hovering rocket rides through the gates, keeping a few steps behind the
square-headed guard. Charlie glanced upwards. The palace walls towered over
him. It made him queasy.

"What's the
deal with the walkie-talkies?" Charlie asked Bei. "They seem a little
out-dated."

"Lady Ori's
a smart one," Bei said. "She keeps all her communications
non-digital. Doesn't want the Corporation or any other monarch hacking
her."

A squadron of
five mercenaries joined their party, surrounding Bei and Charlie. Unlike the
Corporation soldiers, these wore no uniform, and had no ridiculous hairstyles. In
fact, except for Square Head, each man and woman in the troop had the good
looks of models.

"Lady Ori
likes to be surrounded by beautiful people," Bei said, noticing Charlie
checking out their escort.

 
Square Head led them through a ten metre
wide hole in the side of the Palace, and down into a sparsely lit basement. It
stretched a long way into the distance. Hovercraft were parked sporadically
around it, ranging in size from mini metro to articulated lorry. A number of
spacecraft, similar in shape and size to the Bane Flyer, also stood at the far
end. Charlie wondered how the pilots got them in and out.

They parked
their rides as close to the entrance as possible, selecting a spot between two
chunky, heavily armed, spider-legged vehicles.
 
As Bei had instructed, Charlie made a
mental note of his ride's location and the layout of the basement. When he next
saw it, he would be leaving in a hurry and could ill afford forgetting where he
had parked it.

Fifty metres
away, they entered an extravagantly marbled lift, at odds with the oily, dusty
darkness of the basement. As they rode upwards, delicate strings drifted out of
the lift's speakers. It sounded lovely.

They stepped out
of the lift and into a vibrant semi-circle of greens and reds and yellows.
Flowers, arranged in curling patterns, and bushes, trimmed to resemble various
alien animals, filled the garden.

Charlie sneezed.
He shot his eyes up to the sky, half expecting a roller to come surging down.
But then he realised it was most probably his hay fever playing up. Again his
stomach rumbled, reminding him of the need to go. He took a deep breath and
tried to think of something else.

Square Head led
them under an arching spray of water that somehow managed to water the plant
life without getting anyone wet.
 
Outside the palace walls he had seen the poor fighting over bottles of
dirty water, but it seemed there was more than enough refreshment for Lady
Ori's plants.

A glass door,
two storeys in height yet incredibly thin, slid open. They stepped through it
and into pure opulence. Charlie's jaw dropped. He had visited Windsor Castle as
a kid once. This place made the Queen's weekend haunt look like a Merthyr Tydfil
council estate.

The door into
the palace was a great glass monstrosity. Square Head pressed his hand against
a random patch and it slid open. Charlie and Bei followed the huge guard
inside. The five other mercenaries kept behind them.

The room was as
large as it was splendid. The ceiling and walls curved to give those lucky
enough to enter the impression of standing inside a giant shell. The cool
marble floor lay half covered by magnificent rugs. Winding rows of chandeliers
hung from the ceiling, basking all beneath them in golden light. Positioned at
seemingly random intervals along the walls were great canvases depicting
rolling landscapes, ancient battles and handsome gentleman in varying states of
undress.

"Lady Ori's
court," Bei said, no less impressed than Charlie.

The monarch
glittered like a mirage at the opposite end of the room. Charlie and Bei walked
towards her. She was not alone.

Guards, handpicked for their loyalty,
strength and looks, stood in a row behind her. Large rifles hung from their
shoulders, sword hilts stuck out at their waists and the tops of battle-axes
peaked out from behind their broad shoulders.

In front of her
sat a
semi-circle of finely dressed
men and women. They rested on thick furs and intricately weaved rugs, chatting
and laughing.

 
Lady Ori looked down upon them from a
throne of rubies and emeralds. She wore a long emerald robe over a sapphire
dress, but those delicate fabrics paled in comparison to the shimmer of her
golden skin, and the lustre of her curly, black hair that flowed over her dress
like a waterfall. Covered head to toe in jewels, she was a blazing star,
pulling everything into her orbit.

Charlie had seen
more beautiful women, but only in his dreams.

Two beasts sat
either side of her, their chains wrapped loosely around the throne's arms. They
looked like a cross between a Rottweiler and a Komodo dragon. Just like the
monarch, their bodies had been covered in precious stones. The creatures looked
down upon those below with cool indifference, and yawned, revealing fangs that
glistened like rapiers in the light of the giant chandelier hanging above them.

 
Charlie shuddered. Ever since a pit-bull
terrier had attacked him on his paper round, he had feared big dogs, one he had
done his upmost to keep hidden from his mates. He glanced again at their chains.
They looked far from thick enough in his opinion.

As Square Head
led them closer, the beasts sniffed the air and stiffened. Two pairs of burning
eyes fixed upon Charlie. He froze. Bei noticed, and misreading the situation,
said, "Don't worry, Lady Ori's won't hurt you." He laughed, struck
Charlie lightly in the ribs and pushed him onwards. "Unless that's your
thing."

Charlie said
nothing. He was too busy avoiding the four demonic eyes following his every
movement.

Lady Ori held up her hand, revealing a thick
golden bracelet covered in dials and buttons, and called for the two guests to
be brought closer. Square Head stepped aside and motion for them to go ahead.
Charlie stayed close to Bei as they padded their way through the throng of
palace guests.

“Captain Lowaiki,” Lady Ori said. “I thought
I’d never again have the pleasure of your company.”

“It is with a smile in my heart that I stand
here before you today, your Ladyship,” Bei said, bowing low.

“So Captain Lowaiki,” Lady Ori said, a hint
of steel in her voice. “Can I assume that you are here to repay your debt and
the necessary interest?”

“You assume correctly, your Ladyship”

Lady Ori signalled to a stern looking man
standing in the distance holding a small tablet device in his hand. He strode
over to Lady Ori and whispered into her ear. Then he backed away.

“Taking into account eight year's worth of interest,
let's round it up and say you owe me one hundred thousand Seenthee notes.”

The guards that had led them in, and had so
far hung back, stepped forward, forming a crescent behind them.

“I offer you something far more valuable,” Bei
said.

A bemused look passed over Lady Ori's face.
“I'm listening."

“Your Ladyship, you are famed throughout the
land for keeping a harem filled with the most handsome male concubines on the
planet. At what price would you sell your most handsome concubine?”

“Why, I can put no price on him. The
pleasure he gives me is beyond monetary value.”

“Well then, before you stands a male I
believe would challenge any concubine in your harem for looks and charm and
sexual prowess,” Bei said, presenting Charlie with a sway of his arm.

Charlie smiled what he hoped was a most
charming smile. To have any hope of finding Brother Yojim and getting home, he
would have to fulfil his end of the bargain. And that meant impressing this
beautiful alien overlord.

 
“You mean to say you are offering me this
gentleman?” asked Lady Ori.

“You are correct your Ladyship.”

Hazel eyes filled with unhidden scepticism.
“Can that hair and skin be real?”