Weird Space 2: Satan's Reach (7 page)

“So you want me to go in after this killer telepath and bring the fucker back?”

“That’s about the size of it, yes.”

Satan’s Reach, the lawless, ungoverned drift of tightly packed stars beyond the jurisdiction of the Expansion... She had never ventured anywhere near the Reach before, never even met anyone who’d been there. She’d heard rumours, of course, that the Reach consisted of peaceable worlds just like any you might find in the Expansion, and also planets run by criminals, hell-holes settled by fleeing cults, and worlds inhabited by monstrous alien races.

“Who is he?”

Gorley touched the sensor again and the images of the Weird were replaced by the head-and-shoulders shot of a man she guessed to be in his early thirties. Dark, thin faced, with suspicious slit eyes and a wide mouth.

“He goes under the name of Den Harper these days, according to word that’s reached us, and he works as a star trader with the ship he purloined from an Expansion Commander.”

She grunted. “The bastard has chutzpah in bundles,” she said, “and then you sent someone after him and he killed the poor fucker? So it’ll be a walk in the park for me, right? A holiday in Satan’s Reach going after a homicidal telepath... Anything else you haven’t told me?”

Gorley went on, “Word has reached us that he works out of a planet in the core of the Reach called Tarrasay. I suggest you check out the spaceport there, initially. We’ll give you all the data we have on Harper, as well as the spec on the ship he stole.”

She sat back and smiled. “You talk as if all this is a
fait accompli
, Gorley. You assume I’m all for this escapade like a kid at the circus.”

He smiled, thinly. “You have no choice, Janaker. Or rather you do. You trace Harper in the Reach, and bring him back, or face the firing squad.”

She pointed a blaster made out of fingers at him. “That’s what I like about the Expansion, Gorley. Its humanity.”

He opened a drawer in his desk and passed her a small, flat silver oval, which fitted snugly into the palm of her hand. She raised her eyebrows at him.

“A shield,” he explained. “So that the telepath cannot read your mind.”

She nodded, and slipped the device into her jacket pocket.

“Oh – and you’re right,” Gorley went on. “There is one thing that I haven’t yet told you.”

From his tone, she knew she wasn’t going to like this one bit.

“Which is?”

“You’re not going alone.”

She sat forward, belligerently. “You know I always work alone, Gorley! I don’t need an Expansion chaperone!”

“You’ll have a partner this time, Janaker, and it’s no Expansion chaperone.”

She sighed, “Okay, but only if she’s cute and puts out.”

Gorley smiled, but she didn’t like the sly look on his face.

“What?” she said.

“Your partner is a Vetch.”

She stared at him. “A Vetch! A fucking Vetch? You’re kidding? This is a joke, right?”

“Calm down, Janaker. Put your xenophobic prejudices to one side for a while and face the facts. We have recently entered into a pact with the Vetch. All our old hostilities have been set aside in the face of the threat our races jointly face. We will work together with the Vetch to defeat the Weird. To this end, Helsh Kreller is accompanying you to the Reach in order to bring the telepath back to the Expansion.”

A Vetch... She had never actually met a Vetch in the flesh – images of them had been enough to put her off the idea of ever encountering one. They were big and hairy and dog-like – and rumour had it that they stank – and they had faces that looked like rectal haemorrhoids sliced into bloody strips... and they had been at war with the human race for god knew how long, and were responsible for atrocities on the human-settled border territories fifty years ago...

And she was going to share her starship with one of these bastards?

“You’ve overstepped the limits of your authority here, Gorley.”

“You could, Janaker, always take your place before a firing squad, if you don’t like the idea of working with an alien.”

“Fuck you.”

He smiled. “I take that as an agreement to work in inter-species harmony to aid our joint efforts to thwart the Weird.” He glanced at his watch. “You will meet Helsh Kreller in one hour. Before that, you might like to take a meal with me in the restaurant.”

J
ANAKER PUSHED ASIDE
her plate, the food untouched, and stared past Commander Gorley at the...
thing
... that had entered the restaurant.

Heads turned, and a ripple of comment passed through the gathered diners as the Vetch strode towards their table.

Janaker closed her mouth and tried not to show her revulsion.

She guessed the alien was three metres tall, and very broad. It wore a black flight-suit that emphasised its military aspect, and had arms and legs that seemed disproportionately long in relation to its torso, and when it walked its legs flexed in a way that was not normal. But it was its face that she found repulsive, and at the same time fascinating. There was something of the hound about it, especially around the bulging eyes, but the pendent, blood-coloured tentacles that hung from the centre of its face – and acted, so she’d read, as both a nose and a mouth – were like something from a nightmare.

She stood, and Gorley made the introductions. The Vetch held out a claw, six-fingered and covered in hair, and Janaker found herself responding. The creature’s grip was surprisingly slack.

“I do not take orders,” it said in a gruff, muffled baritone which seemed to issue from somewhere amongst its tentacles. “We work in unison, as equals, sharing knowledge, debating scenarios. You agree?”

“I have no objections to that,” she said. “And it’s refreshing that you don’t beat around the bush.”

“Which means?”

“Ms Janaker means,” Gorley said, “that she likes the way you forthrightly articulate your thoughts.”

The Vetch regarded her with its bloodhound eyes. “In my experience there is no other way. Perhaps you humans practise verbal deceit, yes?”

Gorley smiled and defused the situation. “Would you care for a drink, Mr Kreller?”

“Water, while I speak with Sharl Janaker.”

Gorley ordered a glass of water, then excused himself. “I’ll leave you to discuss the mission,” he said with a smile at Janaker, “and get to know each other a little better.”

The Vetch sat down at the table. “So that you know, I would rather be embarking upon this mission alone.”

She smiled, though she was sure the expression was lost on the alien. “So that
you
know, Kreller, I too would rather go it alone. But as I’ve been saddled with you, I’ll make the best of a bad situation. We’ll bring this bastard back to the Expansion in double quick time, Kreller, and then go our separate ways.”

“I see that you too speak forthrightly.”

She nodded and drank her beer. “Your Anglais is excellent.”

“I perfected your tongue while interrogating human prisoners during the Territories War.”

She stared at the monster. “But that was fifty years ago...”

“Your knowledge of recent history is excellent,” Kreller said, and she thought she detected humour in his tone. A Vetch who cracks jokes, she thought; whatever next?

“I am over one hundred human years old,” he said.

She smiled to herself. At thirty-five she felt like a mere child.

“Vetch have faster eye-to-hand reactions than humans,” Kreller went on. “Also, we process reality faster than you do. This is an established scientific fact.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Its bloody eyes regarded her. “In my dealings with humans, Janaker, I have found that your ignorance of my people is vast. You will no doubt find out much more about my people over the course of the next few weeks.”

“I can’t wait,” she said, and smiled sweetly at the Vetch.

“We are due to phase out
en route
for the Reach at midnight tonight,” Kreller said. “I suggest that before then we share our information on the intended subject.”

“Why not?” she said. “But first, perhaps I could introduce you to the delights of human beer?”

“I have tasted the liquid,” he said, “and found it objectionable. I will take another water.”

Janaker ordered a second beer, and a glass of water, and decided that the mission to the Reach with the Vetch was going to be... interesting, to say the least.

On the plus side, her informants had been wrong on one count about the Vetch... Thankfully, they
didn’t
stink.

CHAPTER FOUR

T
HE
J
UDI
H
EARNE
was Harper’s home. It had everything he required by the way of accommodation and amenities, with the bonus of being supremely mobile. He had equipped the ship to his own tastes, buying old rugs, tapestries and furnishings in markets far and wide across the Reach. He liked to call himself a star rover, with no particular allegiance to one planet or star system. If, however, he were pressed on the matter and asked to state his favourite world from the many hundreds he had visited, he would always answer Tarrasay. It was the planet to which he returned again and again, the place where he felt safest. Situated on the far side of the Reach from the human Expansion, Tarrasay was the oldest planet settled by humans. Some said that the first settlers had made their home among the wooded vales and pastures over a thousand years ago, but certainly the majority had fled here five hundred years ago when the draconian rise of the authoritarian Expansion had pushed radicals, free-thinkers and persecuted minorities to seek refuge elsewhere. Over the centuries others had made the star cluster their home, criminals and religious cults and bizarre political factions, though Tarrasay itself – being a sleepy backwater with no great cities and little wealth – harboured none of these.

The planet boasted one small spaceport, situated next to the capital city on the coast, though Harper rarely availed himself of its facilities. He preferred instead to come down on the headland of a bay twenty kilometres north of DeVries, the capital city. Here was a small town tucked into the crook of the bay – Port Morris, by name – with a number of convivial inns and pleasant restaurants.

He had given his destination considerable thought on the voyage through the void. He would have continued on past Tarrasay to Amahla, but for the fact that he was carrying a passenger. Amahla was a series of sparsely populated atolls and islands, perfect for the holiday-maker but no place to make a home. Tarrasay, by contrast, would suit Zeela down to the ground. The capital city favoured artists, musicians and singers: she would find work there without much difficulty.

When he’d set the girl up with a place to live, and put her in touch with his contacts in the city, he would continue on to Amahla. He still had the steamboat engine in the hold, which he hoped to sell,
again
, on the water world.

Three days after leaving Ajanta the ship phased from the void above Tarrasay and dropped through a cloudless sky to the planet’s sprawling equatorial continent. Harper sat in the command sling and admired the view: it was a sight that never failed to stir an appreciation of the planet’s beauty and a sense of grateful homecoming.

“
Judi
,” he said, “what of the Ajantan ship?”

“I can confirm that it was following us from Ajanta,”
Judi
said. “A fast vessel of alien design, but lacking in manoeuvrability – that, or its pilots were unskilled.”

“You managed to lose it?”

“Affirmative. There is a chance that it might pick up our ion signature, in which case we had better beware. I would advise only the briefest stopover on Tarrasay, before heading off again.”

“Good. I’ll do that.”

“One other thing. The Ajantans are a tenacious, persistent race. They have had little contact with the outside Reach, and consider all other life-forms inferior. They also have a ferocious code of honour. They see the human race on Ajanta as little more than chattels, their souls ceded to them through what they call
kleesh
, the edict that in return for a ready supply of dhoor, every human on the planet belongs, in effect, to them. They claim that the agreement was made between themselves and the captain of the starship which crashed on their world over five hundred years ago.”

“Go on.”

“All of which is explanatory to this: that the Ajantans do not give up their possessions easily, or without a fight. We need to be ever vigilant of their continued pursuit.”

“Understood.”

He stared through the viewscreen. His life, for years, had consisted of nothing but being on the run, of constantly looking over his shoulder. He exaggerated, of course: in the early days that had been so – certainly for the first few years. Then, when he had dealt with the bounty hunter, he had worked to cover his trail, assumed new identities with obsessive regularity, and over the past year or two had gradually allowed himself to relax. Recently, in fact, he’d had hardly given a thought to the possibility that the Expansion might still be trying to track him down. Surely, he reasoned, they had more fish to fry than the capture of an errant telepath?

But now he had the pursuit of the aliens to exercise his thoughts.

He ordered
Judi
to come in low from the north, as always, so that his first sight of Port Morris would be from the sea, a merry jumble of colourful weatherboard buildings clustering around the harbour, with emerald pastures rising beyond. He tried to forget about vengeful aliens and concentrate on the beauty of the view.

He heard a sigh behind him and turned to see Zeela standing at his shoulder. He had withdrawn her from the med-pod two days ago, and she had expressed wonder at her rapid recovery and the fact that her shoulder and chest were unscarred.

Harper had found a few old clothes to cover her nakedness, a shirt two sizes too big for her and a pair of baggy trews, cinched at the waist by a thick belt. She had lost her shoes in the flight from the green men, and went barefoot now.

“But it’s beautiful,” she exclaimed.