Brothers in Exile_Sons of the Starfarers Page 6

  “There is problem?”

  “No, no,” said Isaac. “We’re fine, we’re fine. Thanks for your help.”

  The man raised an eyebrow questioningly. Isaac smiled and bowed, hoping that was how people said goodbye in this place. Evidently, it was. The man returned the bow and soon blended back into the crowd.

  “What was that about?” asked Aaron. From the scowl on his face, he didn’t seem too pleased with the way he’d been cut off.

  “Sorry about that. Let’s find a place where we can scope this place out.”

  “You mean like a cantina or something?”

  Absolutely no alcohol, Isaac almost blurted, catching himself just before he said it. The last thing he wanted was a stupid fight with his brother in this place.

  “No, let’s wander around for a bit.”

  Aaron shrugged. “Sure, whatever.”

  They set out down one of the avenues, passing a number of market stalls selling robotic parts and used electronics. None of the goods looked particularly interesting, though they were probably imported. There weren’t too many leather goods for sale, either, which was strange considering the popular styles among the locals.

  “Are you liking?” said one man, pointing to a collection of exotic knives laid out on a dark blue blanket. The blades appeared to be made from tempered durasteel, or perhaps meteoric iron.

  “No, thanks,” said Isaac, waving him away. Aaron lingered, though, drawing the man’s attention.

  “How much is he asking for these?”

  The man, who was short and dark-skinned with a crude prosthetic hand, turned from Isaac and put his good arm around Aaron’s shoulder. “You wanting, yes? I show, you seeing, come coming.”

  “Come on, Aaron,” said Isaac. Aaron ignored him, even though it was clear that neither he nor the vendor could understand each other.

  He reached down and picked up a double-sided blade that was almost twice as long as his hand. Hefting it to test the weight, he set it down and picked up another—a single-bladed knife that curved slightly forward. The man reached down and picked up three more, holding them eagerly out to him.

  “Aaron, what are you doing? We’ve got to go.”

  “Go where? I’m only checking this out. Pretty neat, don’t you think?”

  Isaac sighed. “What use do we have for these kind of trinkets? They’ll just take up our mass allotment.”

  “Oh, come on,” said Aaron, slicing experimentally through the air. “We’ve got room enough for personal belongings. Besides, it would be kind of nice to come away from this place with a souvenir.”

  “Is good quality, very good quality,” said the man, still unaware that Aaron couldn’t understand him. “We are making it from pure refined space rock, melting into purest steel and fashioning by hand technique. Is good steel, very good steel. You are liking, yes?”

  “What does he say?” asked Aaron.

  Isaac took a deep breath and shook his head. “He’s just trying to give you the sales pitch. Best quality, made by hand, yada yada.”

  Before he was finished, the man interrupted them. “You are starfarers, yes? For you I am making special price. Is five hundred station credits, but for you it is being two hundred.”

  “Isaac, what’s he saying?”

  “He says—”

  The man shook his head and stepped in so that he was right in Aaron’s face. He lifted his hands and with firm, precise hand gestures, he made clear the price. Aaron grinned.

  “Two hundred, eh? Is that what he means?”

  Isaac rolled his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. “Aaron, let’s just—”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”

  With the air of a casually interested buyer, Aaron set the knife down and raised his hand to his chin. The man quickly grabbed another one and put it in his hands, using hand gestures to set the price at one eighty. Aaron shrugged, but glanced out of the corner of his eye at another, which the man promptly picked up for him to see. Like silent dancers, they went around almost half a dozen times before they got back around to the first one.

  Isaac folded his arms and sighed as the bargaining began in earnest. He had no doubt that Aaron would talk the man down to a reasonable price, but he still didn’t like it. What did they need a knife for? Not only was it a foolish, wasteful expense, it was a potentially dangerous one. It wasn’t hard to imagine Aaron hurting himself. Hopefully, he’d lose interest before that happened, but if he didn’t, they’d have to lay down some rules, especially in the confined space of the Medea.

  Aaron and the vendor were signing furiously at each other now. Eventually, the man put his good hand on Aaron’s shoulder and smiled. They both nodded, and Isaac realized they’d reached an agreement.

  “How much?” he asked, pulling out the datachip with the information for the Medea.

  “One-twenty,” said Aaron. “Almost didn’t think he’d do it, but he did.” He stepped back to admire his new blade while Isaac sighed and completed the transaction.

  The man nodded and bowed deeply to Isaac as he inserted the datachip into his handheld. The station would register a purchase and withdraw the credits from the Medea’s trading account, paying the man in the local currency, whatever that happened to be.

  “Oh, and he threw in the sheath too,” said Aaron. He held out his hand, and the man reluctantly handed over a black leather sheath with a dark steel tip and a simple belt clip. It was a little longer than the blade itself, about forty centimeters, and bent forward to accommodate the blade’s peculiar shape. Why he would choose such an odd looking knife from the others, Isaac had no idea, but he sighed and finished the transaction.

  “There. Happy now?”

  “Yeah,” said Aaron, clipping the knife to his belt. A couple of people glanced at him as they passed by, making Isaac nervous.

  “You might want to keep that out of sight,” he said. “Don’t want to bring security down on us.”

  “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

  Aaron unclipped the knife and slipped it inside his vest jacket. Behind them, the vendor went back to haranguing potential buyers, just like everyone else in the busy market.

  “Let’s find somewhere to eat,” said Isaac. “It would be good to sit down.”

  “Yeah. I wonder what they drink around here.”

  “I’ll bet if we ask around a bit, we can find someone who can help us with the cryothaw stuff,” he said, hoping to distract his brother from the prospect of a drinking trip.

  It worked.

  “Yeah,” said Aaron, his eyes lighting up. “Let’s do that.”

  Just as long as we’re cautious about it, Isaac thought silently. As colorful and vibrant as this place was, he had no doubt that there were plenty of scumbags as well.

  * * * * *

  They found a cantina not far from the central atrium. Judging from the clothes of the people drinking there, it appeared to be a regular hangout for starfarers and traders. If they were going to find any information on a cryothaw device, this was the place to do it.

  Aaron sat down casually at the bar, in spite of his own ignorance of the language. He’d picked up a few words for popular drinks, though there was no telling if they served any of that here. Either way, Isaac figured he’d have to stay close. He claimed the seat next to him and waved down the bartender.

  “What are you wanting?” the bartender asked. He was a fat, ugly man, with a cybernetic implant in his eye that reminded Isaac of Master Korha back home at Megiddo Station.

  “One bottle beer,” said Aaron in his halting Gaian. “Local brew.”

  “Local?” said the bartender. “Is only vodka spirits brewing local. Beer we are importing from Atalia and Merope Nova—”

  “We’ll take that, then,” said Isaac. “Two pints.”

  The bartender nodded and poured their drinks, much to Aaron’s chagrin. He turned around on his stool and leaned back with his elbows propped up on the counter.

  “You didn’t have to
order for me.”

  Isaac shrugged and glanced to his left. They’d attracted the attention of a couple of women, both of whom were bald except for a single braided lock that stretched past their waists. It was a style peculiar to an esoteric New Humanist cult whose followers hailed from fringes of the Coreward Stars. The girls were probably looking for a starfarer to give them passage somewhere. Isaac glanced over his shoulder, but no one else in the place seemed to pay them any mind.

  “There’s a guy who might be able to help us,” said Aaron. He motioned with his chin at a middle-aged man in a smart-looking business uniform, with a silver wrist console and a headset interface that covered his left ear. He was smoking a hookah and reading something on the table’s holoscreen display.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “All the girls are hanging out around the bar, which means that’s where the pilots are. Pilots carry wrist consoles, but that guy’s got a headset. Only suppliers need equipment like that.”

  Isaac glanced around the cantina. He had to admit, his brother’s reasoning made sense. But if the man was sitting at a table, that meant he was waiting for people to come to him. He’d have a lot more power in a bargaining situation if they went over to him immediately.

  “Let’s give it a couple of minutes. We don’t want to look too eager.” He nursed his drink, sipping from it occasionally as he watched the other patrons go about their business.

  A tap at his shoulder snapped him to attention. He glanced at his side and saw a man in a black silk shirt and synthleather vest, with studded earrings up the sides of both ears.

  “Excusing,” the man said, taking the seat at Isaac’s left. “New you are coming here, no?”

  Aaron perked up, turning around to get a better look at the man. Isaac leaned back so that they could talk with him together, even if Aaron couldn’t understand.

  “Yes,” he answered. “We have come many parsecs from the Oriana Cluster, by way of Esperanzia. Are you looking to trade?”

  The man bobbed his head from side to side, indicating an ambivalent interest. He was olive-skinned and bald, with some sort of eye enhancement that made his pupils flicker. Was that common in these parts? Isaac found it distracting.

  “Perhaps, perhaps. Where you are going after stay is finishing? Maybe deal am having, giving you good price.”

  “We don’t know yet. We haven’t planned our next trade run.”

  The man grinned. “Is good, is very good. Many suggestions I can offering, help you much I can. You are being with starship, no?”

  “What’s he saying?” Aaron whispered.

  “He’s about to give us information on trade routes,” said Isaac. The man waited patiently for them to confer.

  “Why don’t you ask him where we can find that cryothaw machine?”

  “I’m getting there, I’m getting there!”

  He turned back to the man. “There are many colonies in the New Pleiades, is this true?”

  “Is true. Very many.”

  “How many were settled from cryo?”

  The man gave him a puzzled look, so he leaned forward and tried to talk slower. “You know, from cryotanks, frozen for the voyage and thawed on arrival?”

  “You are looking for freeze someone?”

  “Not freeze, thaw. Do you know of a place that does cryothaw?”

  It made Isaac uneasy to come straight out with the question, but he didn’t see any other way. It worked—the man’s eyes lit up almost immediately.

  “Ah, is cryotank you are having. Where you finding?”

  “Does he have one?” Aaron interjected. “Can he help us do it?”

  Isaac raised his hand in exasperation. “Just give me a second. We’re still talking about it.” Then, to the man, “It’s a girl. We found her in the Far Outworlds, a survivor of… of an accident.” Something told him it was a bad idea to get any more specific than that.

  The man nodded vigorously. “Is good, is good. How much you are wanting?”

  “Wanting for what?”

  “I paying good price, very good price. Say, two thousand credits.”

  Isaac frowned. “Look, she’s not for sale. We just want—”

  “What’s he saying?” asked Aaron. “Was that a number he just mentioned?”

  I never should have asked about the cryothaw device.

  “Thanks, but no thanks,” Isaac said, rising to his feet. “We’d better be going.”

  “Is being no good? Okay, three thousand.”

  “She’s not for sale,” he said as firmly as he could manage. “Come on, Aaron, let’s—”

  “Is that creep trying to buy her?”

  Isaac’s stomach sank as he saw the rage in his brother’s face.

  “Look, it’s not a big deal, we’ll just—”

  “You dirty bastard!” he shouted in Gaian, jabbing the man with his finger. “You bastard dirty son of bitch!”

  All around the cantina, heads began to turn. Isaac’s legs turned to water.

  “Okay, okay,” said the man, raising his hands to calm Aaron down. “Is being no problem, no problem. You man, I man. We discussing, no problem.”

  Without warning, Aaron lashed out with a fist to the man’s face. The blow sent him spinning into the counter-top. The people at the bar all rose to their feet, and three bottles fell with a crash to the floor. The bartender began shouting.

  “What is this? What is this?” He turned his fury onto Isaac. “You! You paying for this!”

  “Sorry,” said Isaac, grabbing his brother. “Aaron, let’s get the hell out of here!”

  The man looked up and wiped a hand across his bloodied mouth. His eyes fixed on them and narrowed, but before Isaac could react, rough hands grabbed him by the shoulder and forced him back around.

  “Hey, what are you—ow!” Aaron squealed as the bouncer grabbed him, too. Together, they were dragged to the door and thrown back out into the corridor, falling flat on their faces.

  “You stay out of this place,” said the bouncer. His voice was deep and artificial, modulated by a voice box implant. Isaac rubbed his shoulder and noticed that the man’s hands were cyborg prosthetics. Indeed, half his face was made of metal.

  “No problem,” he said quickly.

  Aaron groaned as the bouncer returned to the dim recesses of the cantina. He rose unsteadily to his feet.

  “What just happened?”

  “You got us in a shipful of trouble, that’s what. I had everything under control, until you jumped in.”

  “He was trying to buy her off of us, wasn’t he?” Aaron rubbed his knuckles and gave the cantina a dirty look. “That son of a bitch was trying to buy her.”

  “Yeah, well, he didn’t, so you can calm down now. Come on, let’s get out of here before we make any more trouble.”

  Isaac took his brother by the arm and pulled him away. Aaron resisted at first, but soon came along. Even he had the good sense to know that they’d screwed up. If they managed to make any trades here at all, it wouldn’t be for any goodwill they’d earned.

  * * * * *

  The tram for the docking arm was small, with only enough seating for twenty people. By the time they arrived at the docking node for the Medea, Isaac and Aaron were alone.

  The tram came to a halting stop, and the doors chimed and slid open. A flashing sign warned of low gravity, but even at the end of the docking arm, the artificial gravity field was strong enough that Isaac could walk with little trouble. He still gripped the handholds as he climbed out, though. His brother followed behind him.

  “Sorry about the cantina,” said Aaron a bit sheepishly. Neither of them had spoken since the fight that had gotten them thrown out.

  “Yeah, well, I’m sorry too,” said Isaac. Even though they were alone, he didn’t want to talk about it.

  The docking arm was long and narrow, with walkways and nodes on either side of the track. The upper level was windowless, but the lower level had control stations to oversee the supplying and refu
eling of each starship. Isaac eased himself through the hatch and down the ladder to the lower level.

  He didn’t see the two men until it was too late.

  Rough hands grabbed him by his legs and pulled him down before he reached the bottom. He yelped and grabbed the ladder rung above him. A fist smashed into the side of his head, knocking him back and making him lose his grip. He fell back onto the floor.

  “Isaac? Isaac!”

  A savage kick hit him squarely in the side. His head spun, and his ears rang as if alarms were going off in them. He curled up in pain as another blow hit him in the chest.

  What’s going on?

  Before he could catch sight of his attackers, one of them cried out in pain. The floor shuddered as Aaron landed on his feet beside him, slashing out with his knife. An arc of blood sprayed up in the air, and the attackers fell back against the far wall.

  “Isaac, up the ladder!”

  The two men had been pushed back temporarily, but the hatch was the only way out. There was nowhere to run. Realizing this, they raised their fists and made ready to lunge forward. One of them brandished a half-meter length of pipe, his arm bleeding where Aaron had slashed him. The other had solid metal hands and a prosthetic eye that glowed red.

  Isaac didn’t need to be told twice. He scrambled up the ladder as quickly as he could manage. His side hurt something fierce—if it weren’t for the lower gravity, he probably wouldn’t have made it. With adrenaline coursing through his veins, he staggered to the top and reached back to help his brother.

  Aaron climbed out not a moment after him. The two men grabbed at his feet, but he kicked them away and pulled himself free.

  “Isaac, are you all right?”

  “We’ve got to call the authorities,” said Isaac. He half expected the men to climb after them, but apparently, they were too afraid of Aaron and his knife. With the blade smeared with fresh red blood, he didn’t blame them.

  Aaron nodded, but as he looked past him his eyes suddenly widened.