8
Only a dozen or so passengers boarded the shuttle to Palan’s surface. Molly and Cole were the only two humans, making them the aliens to gawk at. The young girl from earlier was just as shy the second time around, recoiling from Molly’s wave, but with a timid smile. A Palan steward came down the aisle, checking that everyone had their harness secure before rushing to join the pilot in the cockpit. Or had that been the pilot? Molly wondered. There didn’t seem to be many crew members on the shuttle.
Cole automatically sat to Molly’s left again, beside the window. Molly assumed it was more so he’d have a place to rest his head than any attempt to pull rank. He nudged Molly and she turned to see him pointing out the glass. There was nothing out there but stars.
“What am I looking at?” she asked.
“That!” he said, rubbing his finger on the glass with a squeaking sound.
Molly loosened her shoulder straps and leaned over Cole, focusing on his finger. There was a faint crack in the carboglass running the length of the window! Molly felt the airlocks decouple and the shuttle slide sideways in space, preparing for its descent.
“Should we tell somebody?” she asked, cinching her harness up tight.
Cole craned his neck to inspect the porthole one row back. “That one’s even worse,” he marveled. “There’s no way this ship passed inspections.”
Molly felt like they should warn somebody, but the shuttle was already accelerating, pinning her to her seat.
“Wow. That’s a few Gs,” Cole said. “Somebody’s in a hurry.”
If he was trying to lighten the mood, it wasn’t working. A few minutes later, the shuttle hit the atmosphere and started taking a beating. None of the passengers spoke, they just looked ahead or out to the steel wings, which seemed to be flapping up and down like a bird’s. The sounds of grinding metal and bending trusses groaned throughout the ship, reverberating over the roar of air knocking against the hull.
After a few minutes, the heat inside the shuttle became intolerable. There was no air coming out of the vents overhead. Molly reached up, straining against the Gs, to twist the nozzle open. The plastic unit came off in her hand. She held the broken piece in her lap, beads of sweat streaking back from her forehead as the friction of reentry blasted the fuselage, heat radiating through the insulation and into the cabin. Molly sweated profusely, partly from the rise in temperature, but mostly out of fear.
She couldn’t remember being this scared in all her life. She needed to be in control, or at least be up in the cockpit so she could see what was going on. As they stopped accelerating, switching to a glide against the atmosphere, Molly considered unbuckling her harness and going forward where she could at least know how they were going to die. All she could see through Cole’s window was the glare of a bright sun and glowing-red steel.
They hit a pocket of turbulence and the shuttle lurched upwards, pressed Molly violently into her seat. She decided to stay put and cope with someone else being in control, but not at all comfortable with it being anyone other than Cole. After a few minutes of frightful shuddering, the mad plummet ended and the pilot smoothed out into another glide. The sun disappeared behind gathering clouds, revealing a vast ocean spread out below. A hiss filled the shuttle—the sound of air leaking in through cracks or maybe passengers heaving a sigh of relief.
Molly released Cole’s arm; she couldn’t even remember grabbing it. She looked down at his tan skin and saw small white frowns of indented flesh where her fingernails had been.
The landing felt like another bout of turbulence as the shuttle rebounded off the tarmac several times. When they came to a halt, Molly felt the urge to applaud the pilot. In fact, the murmurs of relief washing through the shuttle made her expect a standing ovation at any moment. Instead, the passengers collected their bundles and hurried toward the exit, the sense of urgency palpable, as if the shuttle still posed some sort of threat. Molly moved eagerly as well, but for a different reason. She was dying to get out and explore her first new planet in ten years.
The landing ramp descended and the first thing Molly noted about Palan was the heat. It assaulted her before she even got to the exit. It felt like a wall of water flooding the aisle. Molly took a deep breath against it, but the humidity was so high, it felt like she could drown. The wetness stuck to her, transferring heat straight to her bones and making her loose shirt cling to her stomach.
She and Cole swam with the others through the thick air, down the boarding ramp, and into a half-circle tunnel of corrugated steel. They were pressing toward a cacophony of clanging and yelling—poverty’s soundtrack. This was a tune Molly recognized from her childhood on a frontier planet. It was a chorus of competitive complaining, a group with very little yet wanting much. The sounds were as thick as the atmosphere; Molly could feel it all driving her back like the force of acceleration, back into the shuttle and out of there.
As they exited the tunnel into the Shuttle Terminal, Molly’s architectural tastes gagged. Even after a steady diet of what the Navy considered “spatially pleasing,” she couldn’t believe how rough this place was. Everything in the Terminal had the appearance of a temporary structure, something that could be packed up and moved when trouble arose. Palans conducted business in crowded clusters around rickety stalls and tents stretched with patchwork quilts. Molly noted they needed yet more patching—little of the original fabric remained. Frayed edges hung in long rows of tatters and thread.
No two things looked the same, preventing the collection of oddities from taking on a quaint, cultural aspect. Instead, it was just a noisy, hot, wet, crowded mess.
Cole studied the photograph of their contact one last time and seemed able to ignore it all. Molly wiped the back of her hand across her brow and new sweat leapt out to replace the departed. She watched Cole tuck the printed picture inside his jacket pocket and wondered how he could possibly wear that thing in this heat.
Then she realized he probably had a stun gun or something Navy-issue underneath. She preferred not to know, assuming this was going to go as smoothly as cutting butter would be in this heat. One night on Palan, max, while they sorted out customs and ownership, and she and Cole would be out amongst the stars in her very own spaceship.
Chaperoned, of course.
A man in a brown robe approached them. Large holes in the thick fabric were spanned by strips of colorful cloth, straining valiantly to hold everything together. The man’s hood was up, shading a face the color of stainless steel. Copper-colored hair hung from the shadows above his bright eyes. He looked right at Molly. “Cole Mendon?a?”
“Does she look like a Cole to you?”
The man with the metal-colored face seemed reluctant, but finally pulled his gaze to Cole’s. “Jusst becausse I wass looking at her doessn’t mean I wassn’t assking you.” He looked back at Molly, leering. “Better get ussed to it with her around.” A purplish tongue came out and ran itself along the man’s lips.
“Who in hyperspace are you?” Cole demanded. He moved between the stranger and Molly to steal his gaze back.
Molly looked away nervously. Several people were watching the exchange, but maybe they’d just never seen Humans before.
“Drummond ssent me. For my good Englissh. No? Come, I take you.” He stared at Molly over Cole’s shoulder. Cole glanced back at her, his eyes raised and looking for a consensus.
She shrugged. “Do we have a choice?”
“Fine,” Cole told the stranger. “Lead the way.”
????
“Ssoon Palan be a firsst classs world, eh?” Their guide walked ahead of them, his arms spread out to indicate the activity on either side of what really couldn’t be considered a terminal. Instead of organizing travelers into queues and providing them a place to rest, the building didn’t have lines or chairs. The shuttle just deposited everyone right into some sort of disorganized market designed to remove any cash brought onto the planet—all legal tender recognized, and some that might be questionable.
Their nameless guide kept his arms stretched out, splaying his brown canvas robe open like a giant wing. Molly couldn’t tell if it was a display of pride or sarcasm; the inflections were alien and accompanied with much hissing. She followed along, taking in the scene around her.
Being born on a frontier planet prepared her for much of what she saw. Various races clucked and hissed in an assortment of languages. Foods she’d never seen before, which meant they probably didn’t merit exporting, added pungent odors to the thick air. Everyone bartered with everyone else, all exhibiting the agitation and nervous energy that accompanied this universal pastime. The figures not engaged in this activity milled about, doing a poor job of hiding the bad thoughts rattling around in their dull heads. Overhead, tangles of wires knotted together in a grand display of unplanned infrastructure. Each line went as directly as it could to where it was going, no routing or compromise for the sake of simplicity or safety.
Molly wondered what Cole’s experiences were off-planet, and the question filled her with a shocking sense of how little they really knew about one another. In the Academy, you only concerned yourself with what had happened since you arrived and what you planned on doing once you graduated. Not that she hadn’t attempted to pry into his childhood, she’d just never been able to create a crack. How much did she even know about the boy she was absolutely, positively, one-hundred percent falling in love with?
She chewed on this and slipped a hand inside his arm, grasping his bicep. The casual flexing of it comforted her as they walked along under the pull of a little more than one Earth gravity. Also comforting was the occasional bump against something hard hidden beneath his jacket. The chances that this would go smoothly seemed to be lessening the more she took in their surroundings. And her esteem of the planet wilted while their guide’s question regarding its future hung in the nauseating air.
“Yeah, lovely planet here, guy,” Cole answered for her. “Now where’s Drummond?”
“Ssoon. Ssoon!” He waved them forward without looking back, as if they were lagging behind. “He iss in the Regal Hotel. We go there now. Jusst a few blockss. Come.”
A few blocks? From a shuttle terminal? Molly couldn’t imagine the racket they’d made landing there. It was like parking a space cruiser in downtown Chicago. Most planets are sensible enough to locate their space ports in the middle of nowhere.
Palan’s problem in general appeared to be a complete lack of planning. The guiding principle here was chaos divided by large gutters. Molly had yet to see any sign of law enforcement or security; this was a planet with no obvious rules to follow—social, legal, or commercial. The results were just what one would expect.
They exited the terminal to find the parts of the market that wouldn’t fit spilling out with them. Rutted and degrading roads radiated away at odd angles, a high crown in the center curving down into deep gutters. The sidewalks were lined with poles to prevent the cars from intruding, and traffic coordinated itself with an endless sequence of horn blasts and profanities. People seemed to move by bumping off one another, none of them willing to give, everyone resisting the barter.
They stayed in their guide’s wake as he cleared a path to the hotel. The throng gradually thinned as they moved away from the market. It was as if Palan’s population was densest around the hope of escape represented by the shuttle. They clustered around it in a mass of messy desperation.
Molly understood the urge to be near the exit. After walking two blocks through the bustle and feeling her damp clothes wrap themselves around her, she wanted out of there as well. At first, she’d been desperate to leave the terminal, getting out into fresh air and away from the crowds. But now she felt as if they were going the wrong direction. They should have arranged for Parsona to meet them on the tarmac so they could leave straight away.
She felt relieved a block later when their guide signaled their arrival. “Here we are,” he said. “The Regal Hotel.” Their guide treated them to another flourish. Once again it was impossible to determine if this was sincere or a snide insult. He waved them into a structure that would leave a stain on the word “regal” for the rest of their lives.
The lobby, even more packed than the streets had been, contained almost no furniture. Loiterers leaned on the walls or squatted on the floor. Many were completely prone, resting on sheets of paper as if even the locals couldn’t stand direct contact with their world. Nobody seemed to be waiting on anyone or preparing to go out for the day. This was it. For all Molly could tell, these were patrons paying a lesser fee to live in one large room.
With no clear path through the maze of bodies, the trio cheated by stepping over the labyrinth’s walls where they were lowest. Molly quickly learned to pass over the sleepers so she didn’t have to bother with an apology. She fought the urge to cover her mouth and nose with her hand. The air in the lobby was pungent and thick.
Their guide was all smiles. “Come, come. Up to a room. Drummond hass a room.”
This confirmed Molly’s suspicions about the lobby’s renting arrangements. It also increased her fear that they were being led into a trap by a complete stranger.
“Why don’t you have Drummond come down here and meet us?” Cole asked their guide, seemingly in sync with Molly. “We’ve shown you quite a bit of trust by following this far. The least he can do is meet us halfway, shake hands, and then we’ll conduct our business. Yeah?”
The guide’s face said No, but he hissed a Yess. “Wait here,” he said. “Wait.”
So Molly and Cole both looked around for some place to get comfortable. And decided this was pretty much it.
????
Drummond came down the steps peering in every direction, back and forth, but never quite at Cole and Molly. He looked horrible. His clothes, rumpled and stained with sweat, matched the disarray of his matted hair, which was smeared against his forehead in wet clumps. He resembled the guy in the Navy photo, but as a long-lost cousin might. Drummond was either the Navy’s top special agent at going undercover, or his time on Palan had not been kind to him.
When he reached the bottom of the staircase, he seemed reluctant to descend down from the last step, choosing instead to lean against the shadowed wall of the tight stairwell. He finally made eye contact with his visitors and waved them over, the signal full of desperate frenzy.
Molly and Cole moved as quickly as they could without hurting anyone. With his longer legs, Cole reached the stairs first. He held out a hand and Molly heard him introduce himself. Drummond looked at the limb like it was an alien life-form. He whispered loudly, “Come upstairs. We can’t talk here. Can’t be seen together.” He leaned further back in the shadows and jerked his head at the figure behind him. The guide from the spaceport descended the stairs and lurched out into the sea of bodies.
Cole looked back at Molly and she shrugged her shoulders again, renewing her grasp on her luggage. Cole nodded and followed Drummond up the stairs. Molly hurried after, noticing the man went up much faster than he had come down.
They exited the stairwell on the third floor. Drummond hurried down the hall to one of the rooms and held the door open a crack, barely far enough for them to squeeze their bodies through. His paranoia was odd considering the complete dearth of other people around.
Molly shoved her bag through the gap and pressed in after it. The inside of the hotel room reminded her of the rest of Palan: disorganized, humid, and reeking. At least they had it to themselves. She no longer felt assuaged by the idea that they would only spend a single night on Palan. She wanted to get aboard Parsona and get the hell out of there. Pronto.
“I’m Molly Fyde,” she told Drummond. “I’m here to collect my ship, the Parsona.”
The agent looked at her with the same lack of comprehension Cole’s hand had warranted. “Yes. Of course,” he finally said. “But?.?.?.? there’s a bit of a problem here.”
“What sort of problem?” demanded Cole. “We were told you had this handled on your end.”
“I did. I mean, I do.” Drummond walked to the window and stood as if he were looking out, but the shades were drawn tight. “The paperwork and bribes went through customs without a hitch. The Smiths were given the bounty the Navy wired through. So the government and the pirates are both cleared up.”
“The Smiths?” Molly wondered aloud.
“Yeah, the pirate gang that found the ship. It was drifting around Palan’s smallest moon. They claim the thing was spiraling down so they wanted a fifty percent salvage bounty.” Drummond looked up at the ceiling. “Surprisingly, the Navy didn’t even barter.”
“I guessed who they were,” Molly said. “I was just expecting a more menacing gang name.”
“Are you kidding?” Drummond locked eyes with Molly. “That’s an unusual name around here. And the locals can’t stand saying it.” He leaned toward both of them a little. “Mum’s the word, but my real name is Simmons. Can you imagine the reaction?”
Cole shook his head politely, but Molly was getting annoyed with the cultural lessons. She wanted action. “What’s the hold-up?” she asked. “What do we need to do?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Drummond. “Some other party is interested. Or the Smiths are no longer in charge. I got permission to move some supplies onboard the ship. I was checking the astral charts to make sure they were up to date, running ships diagnostics, all the usual stuff. Then some locals barged into the cargo bay like they owned the damn thing. Never seen ’em before in my life.
“So I tell them I’m a lawyer and I’m serving a client’s last will and testament, and they tell me I’m full of it. This is their ship and I get off now or I’m a dead man. They didn’t even let me grab the supplies I’d already loaded.
“I went to the Smiths and they played dumb. Said they’d no clue who these guys were and they weren’t interested in getting involved. So I went to Customs and those guys pretended not to know me. I showed them the paperwork from the day before, showed it to the same guy who signed and stamped it. You know what he said?”
Cole looked like he wanted to tear his hair out. “How could we?”
“Forgery. That’s what he said. No problem, I thought. These backwoods hicks want to play around with me? I’m the flankin’ Navy! So I went to my stash, a hidden place where I keep my radio, my Navy credentials, my second gun, everything. You know what I found?”
Molly saved Cole the trouble. “What?”
“Nothing. It was gone. All of it. There’s no way anyone stumbled on this, and I’ve never been followed. You’d have to think a damned spy satellite was tracking me for anyone to know where that stuff was. But no problem, right? I was just progressing down the list, right? So my next step, I mean I had to blow cover, so my next step was to go to the Naval offices and request the use of their long-range. I had to get through to Lucin’s aide.”
“You’re working directly through Lucin?” Molly asked.
“No, Lucin’s aide, in Saunders’s office. This operation’s being run by the Academy. Anyway, the guys in the Naval Office tell me it’s no big deal, private interests and personal matters, is what they say. But it doesn’t matter ’cause the Naval secretary couldn’t confirm me. Said I wasn’t in the system.”
Cole and Molly glanced at each other, eyes wide. “What do you mean, you weren’t in the system?” Cole asked.
“What I just said, man! They were patient with me at first, I mean?.?.?.?I must’ve seemed real sincere, you know? Because I was being sincere. I am being sincere. I told ’em I was working for a Rear Admiral, on special assignment, scan my prints and see. So they do the retinal scan and the palm prints and they get nothing. I didn’t believe them so they let me see the screen. Nothing, man. I don’t exist. Now they’re looking at me like I’m crazy, so I get the hell out of there.
“Navy people have been following me around ever since. Probably have Palan’s only spy satellite devoted to me, right? That doesn’t sound crazy, does it? I mean, how do you explain all this?”
That’s when it dawned on Molly: this was their chaperone. This paranoid wreck was supposed to be looking after them. Instead they were being talked to like adults and having to cajole him along like a younger brother. Their safety net had been pulled away. Molly took a side step toward Cole and reached a hand into his arm, finding her comfort place. But all of Palan was pressing in around her, the smell getting stronger, the heat rising. Their ride off this planet had been hijacked and their official contact was completely useless.
Cole must have been thinking some of the same thoughts. “Okay, the first thing we need to do is go to the Navy Office ourselves. I have my credentials with me, and Molly should be in the system as well. We’ll get them to loan us some Marines, we’ll go clear out the Parsona, and then we’ll get out of here.”
A wild look of agitation shivered across Drummond’s face.
“Don’t worry,” Molly said, raising her hand, palm down, “We’re gonna take you with us.”
“Our cover is busted,” Cole added, “so the pirate gangs will realize they’re dealing with Navy. That means we’ll have to get out quick. If they realize the bounty came from Naval personnel, with no bartering at all, they may think they have something priceless. We’ll never see that ship again.”
He looked to Drummond. “We’re gonna need you to round some stuff up so we can make a quick escape. Tell me which systems you checked out on the ship and what condition she’s in.”
“Yes, of course. I can help. Oh, thank gods you guys are here. You have credentials, which is good—”
“The ship’s condition, Drummond.”
“Yeah, sorry. She looks great on the outside, I mean for an older ship. No big dents, could use some paint. A few micro-meteor burns, but what ship doesn’t, right? Um, the inside is a bit rough, but the important bits seemed shiny. And uh, diagnostics didn’t turn up anything, but I did a quick scan, you know? Before I was interrupted.”
“Okay.” Cole turned to Molly. “Are you fine with this? We go to the Navy, show them the ownership papers, storm in with Marines and all that? It’s your call.”
“No. I mean, yeah, Cole, that sounds like the best course.” She was glad he was here, that someone was making decisions. There were times when she flashed back to the Tchung scenario and felt like she was the one playing dead while he took the helm. If they could keep doing this for each other, taking control when the other was out, everything should be all right. As long as both of them were never out of commission at once, or separated, this hiccup might not turn out to be a big deal after all.