The Star Pirate's Folly (7 page)

“Can anything be done?”

“A brain aneurysm could strike Starhawk at this very moment
and bring all of this to a sudden and peaceful halt.”

“There is a very small chance of that happening, sir.”

“Yes, I understand that, Gim. Terrible time to joke, but I
was only kidding. Mostly. Anyway, Starhawk has told me he never wanted to
actually strike at the Core—he only convinced the pirates to follow him out
here because he’s told them we have the coordinates to the vast buried treasure
hoard of a dead pirate named Dreadstar—a map of sorts. He’s told me if we give
up the map he’ll leave our city alone.”

“You've spoken to him?”

“He's called me. Hacked through my pad, I couldn't even turn
it off. He threatened to raid the planet if we don't give up the map, but he
says they'll leave us alone if we give it up.”

“And this map—is there any truth to it?”

“It’s authentic.”

“Historically speaking, I must advise you that such promises
are rarely kept,” Gim said.

“Yes, Gim. I’m afraid you’re right.”

“How will you proceed?”

Strump chomped at a sausage link. “I’m going to run away.
And you’re coming with me.”

Gim allowed surprise to register on his face, but did not
comment, studying the Governor as the man nonchalantly finished his meal,
probing his face for answers. His manner and expression indicated that he was
most likely withholding some piece of information which he planned to reveal
for dramatic effect. It was actions such as these that puzzled Gim about the
Governor—surely he must know that a fabricant would feel no sense of
apprehension, no buildup of emotional tension. Was it purely for his own
amusement?

“We’re going to save the planet,” Strump said, breaking the
silence. “I have the map under my control. I’ve already arranged an expedition
and we’re going to go after the treasure before Starhawk does. By the time he
gets to Surface we’ll be long gone with the map, and he’ll be forced to chase after
us—away from the planet. Back to the belt. Back to our fleet.”

“Where is the map?”

“Waiting on our ship,” Strump said as he downed the dregs of
his tea.

Bee wasn’t sure what exactly to expect when she stepped into
the transport room. The walls were bare steel, adorned only with friendly
instructional messages indicating how to proceed. On the smooth floors, glowing
lines created lanes for travelers to follow to the gate itself. On the wall
opposite the airlock was a set of ceiling-height circular sliding doors—the
gate itself.

Behind Bee, the airlock door shut and the attendant Juanito
sealed it from within. Apprehension gripped her. Was she doing this right? Were
the doors just going to open up for her? She wished there were other travelers
there with her. The room looked like it could easily hold a few hundred people,
and its size spooked her into feeling small and fragile. She walked to the
middle of the room and faced the gigantic sliding doors of the gate.

A red scanning light flashed out of a lens recessed inside
the gate’s upper frame. The lens winked green in confirmation when it got her
eye, then began pulsing once per second, and each time the green light pulsed a
rhythmic chime would sound. After ten seconds a louder chime rang out and the
doors slid smoothly out of the way. On the other side was a room that looked
exactly the same as the one she stood in. Was that it? She just walked through?

Bee shifted her pack on her shoulder, a bit nervous. In just
a few more steps she would be over two hundred miles above Surface, aboard Overlook
Station which hung overhead in low planetary orbit. It just all seemed too
easy. She was expecting something powerful, something that would rumble and
shake. She hadn’t heard anything. Was wormhole travel really so simple? Maybe
that’s why she didn’t remember the trips—to a child it would be just like
walking through another room on the station, and then you’re on Surface. She
probably wouldn’t have even noticed.

“Miss, you can proceed, please,” came a hesitant voice over
the intercom. It was Juanito. His timid words jolted her from her thoughts and
she stepped forward.

“Sorry,” Bee said.

She walked through the archway with her head down, and
although she knew it was perfectly safe she felt a distinct chill as she
entered the gate. She brought her shoulders in as though she was afraid to
brush the sides of the gate despite the size of the entrance. The fear passed
as soon as she got into the other room, but she could hear her heart pounding
in her ears. It was stupid, she knew. Just irrational panic.

Still, she grabbed the straps of her pack and pulled them
tight against her shoulders as she walked to the airlock. The sound of the
gate’s doors sliding shut behind her made the hairs on the back of her neck
stand up. She toed the thick red line that marked the area in which the airlock
door would swing open, as far from the gate as she could get.

As Bee stood in front of the airlock the chiming started
again, and she counted as it went all the way up to ten. She read the words
WAIT
BEHIND LINE FOR ATTENDANT
in white letters against a red background on the
airlock door. She just wanted to be out of the room. The feeling grew in her
chest, clawing its way up her throat until she realized she was holding her
breath. She exhaled as the louder “all clear” chime rang out, and the attendant
on the other side swung open the airlock door. Bee drew in a deep breath
through her nose. She was not going to enjoy the return trip.

“Welcome aboard,” the female attendant said as she carefully
opened the door and secured it against the wall. “All by yourself?”

“Yeah,” Bee said, and walked past the woman into the
airlock.

The attendant pulled shut the door behind Bee before moving
to the other end of the airlock to open the outer door. At last the woman
pushed open the final barrier between Bee and freedom and beckoned for her to
come out.

“Thanks,” Bee said.

“My pleasure,” the attendant replied as she shut the door.

And just like that Bee found herself standing in another
vault-like room of airlocks aboard Overlook Station—her old home, not that she
remembered much about it. There was something familiar about the air, though.
It was scrubbed, filtered. Devoid of any particular odor. It wasn’t like the
air of the city with its mixture of different, sometimes disgusting, scents
mingling together. Up in the station it was sterile. Nostalgia gripped her
momentarily as connections sparked between her memories. She shook the feeling
as best as she could and headed to the exit hallway.

Bee stopped to examine a chart on the wall and found dock
B46. It was close. As she walked the hallways a fit young couple passed her in
a hurry—they must have come up right behind her. The woman was dressed
provocatively in sheer garments that left little to the imagination. The man
kept looking around like he might catch someone eyeing up his mate. He walked
close to her, and kept reaching out to touch her as though she might drift
away.

Bee turned around a corner the opposite way the couple had
gone. The docking bays for Section B were just up ahead. Soon she’d have the
other half of her payment and she could go back to Hargrove and tell him the
good news. He probably wouldn’t be happy at the circumstances through which she
had acquired the money, but her only other option was waiting for a few more
years and scraping together whatever she could until she finally had enough to
buy a ticket to one of the settlements in the belt.

Once she was out there she could really start her hunt.
Trawling the bounty boards was keeping her mind at ease—it was really the most
she could do—but Bee knew her best chance of finding him was to actually get
out there and look for him. With as much money as she had she might even be
able to hire a real bounty hunter to help her.

Bee arrived at the docking area, where the hallway ended in
a T-junction. The wall in front of her had a series of small round windows at
about eye level, with some signs between the windows pointed left for docks
1-25 and right for docks 26-50. She took a right, gazing out the windows as she
passed them. Ships were parked outside, attached to the station’s airlocks by
docking pods. She watched as several of them retracted their pods and,
synchronized by the station’s autopilot program, glided smoothly into a line
together and departed the station. They were most likely headed to one of the
nearby orbital launching platforms for interplanetary travel.

Continuing down the hall and around a corner, Bee saw the
sign for B46 several airlocks ahead on the right. Next to each door was a
screen with a built in scanning lens. Bee stood in front of the airlock and
waited for the scanner to flash her with its red beams. Nothing happened. She
wondered briefly if she was supposed to open it manually, like the attendants
had before, but then Bill Silver’s face popped up on the screen.

“Good,” he said. “I’ll let you in.”

Silver opened the airlock and squeezed off to one side of
the entrance, waving her inside. He was taller than Bee thought he would be,
and without his apron his protruding gut was exposed. Bee slipped past him,
close enough to walk through the clean, vaguely masculine scent of his body
wash or cologne.

The docking pod curved to the right, and she saw the inner
airlock had been left open. She boarded the ship as Silver closed the outer
door behind her. His metal hand clicked against the wheel as he spun it. The
cockpit was to her right, and the body of the ship to the left. It was just a
short range shuttle. She stood just inside and waited for Silver, who hurried
past her.

“Just wait here, you won’t be staying long. I’ll get a pad
to send your money,” he said.

Bee nodded and stayed where she was. Just as he disappeared
around the corner, a buzzer sounded from the airlock and a projection window
popped up. It showed a suave clean-shaven blond man, maybe forty, dressed in a
sleek olive green business suit. He seemed agitated, wringing his hands
together and glancing around. He was accompanied by a thin-framed teenage boy
dressed in a similar style who stood with his back straight and stared ahead
with a blank expression.

“Bill!” the man shout-whispered, pounding on the airlock
door. “I know you’re in there. Come on, you gotta let me in Bill!”

“Hang on, I’ll get it,” called Bill from down the hall.

Bee held a finger against the display and said, “Just a
minute.”

“They could be right behind me, we don’t—” The man began,
then realized he wasn’t talking to Bill.

His head cocked in what seemed an involuntary twitch of
romantic interest and his eyes darted across her face. Bee released the button
and the screen out in the hall went dark. The man outside turned to his
companion to whisper something in his ear, and the two held a hushed
conversation.

“I told you to leave it alone,” Silver said from behind her.
“I’ve sent your money, see?”

Bee turned and looked over the information on the pad he was
holding, and it seemed to her that he genuinely had followed up with his second
five thousand credit payment. Silver gave her the pad and moved to the airlock
to answer the buzzer.

“If you want to double check you can sign in to your own—”
He faltered when he saw who was on the other end of the airlock. He touched the
display and spoke. “You’re not supposed to be here yet.”

“There’s been a change of plans, Bill. We’ve got to leave.”

“What, now?” Silver said.

“Yes, now! Let’s go, do we have everything?”

Silver released the button, ending the call, and turned to Bee.
“The map?”

Then it clicked—the guy’s face. Bee hadn’t recognized him at
first, but she couldn’t believe she had missed it. She’d seen his campaign ads.

“Is that… Governor Strump?” Bee said as she dug Slack Dog’s pad
out of her pocket. She handed it to Silver, who snatched it from her with his
good hand.

Silver ignored her as he began to open the airlock door.
“You're leaving now.”

“Wait, what was he saying? That’s the Governor, isn’t it?” Bee’s
questions came tumbling out of her mouth as she followed Silver through the
airlock, but he said nothing as he opened the outer door.

“Took you long enough, Bill,” the man said as he and his
companion came inside.

“You were supposed to meet me at the launching platform,”
Bill said. “What happened?”

“Are we ready to go?” he asked, ignoring Bill’s question.

“We can be at the platform in twenty minutes.”

“Then let’s go. Why don’t you say goodbye to your friend and
we can discuss things while we depart. Come, Gim,” he said, and walked inside
the ship with the boy Gim in tow.

“We’re not friends,” growled Bill. He gestured with a
hurried wave for Bee to exit the airlock so he could close the door.

Silver had what he needed from her, and he was urgent to
leave. Bee could safely assume there was someone after the map—and maybe after
her. What if they knew she had been carrying it? She could have been seen going
into Silver’s ship.

“You waiting for a tip or something?” Bill said, gesturing
again to the door.

“No, I just... do I have anything to worry about?” asked Bee,
tilting her head in the direction the Governor had just gone. “He said—”

“Not if you keep your mouth shut and your head down. Now
beat it.”

“Look, if someone’s after him they might come for me too.
You can’t just throw me back out there without telling me anything.”

“Oh, don’t go all doe-eyed on me. I paid you already—and a
damn lot, I’ll add—which concludes our business. Just go home and you’ll be
fine.”

Bee narrowed her eyes. “Where exactly did that map come
from?”

“Never mind, girl, just get off my damn ship!” He took a
step forward to force her back.

Silver was a powerful man, and she saw genuine anger on his
face. The metal hand looked like it could do some damage. She flinched and
backed away when he came forward, stumbling out of the airlock. Silver wasted
no time securing the door, leaving Bee alone in the hallway.