M. Planck - The Kassa Gambit

In Kyle’s opinion, she had spent way too much time studying spider anatomy over the last few days. She kept leaving pictures of various horrible eight-legged monsters on the data screens, and it was creeping everyone out.

“They’re not actually spiders, Prudence. They just look like them. They have eight legs and fangs. Other than that, we don’t know much.”

“Except that they’re immune to tetrodotoxin.” Prudence had looked up the name of the stuff that made Baharain poisonous. You didn’t even have to breathe it—just getting it on your skin could be fatal. “And we can assume they are more resistant to radiation than we are. That fighter-craft wasn’t shielded very well.”

“Then how do we kill them?” Garcia was exasperated. “You’ve ruled out air, poison, radiation … what’s left?”

“A plasma bomb works pretty well.”

Kyle hadn’t meant to sound so bitter.

Garcia matched his bitterness, and raised him by a gallon of bile. “Maybe we have some, then. I’ll just check the cargo manifest … oh, look. We don’t have a cargo manifest. Because we don’t have cargo.” The man seemed less concerned about the fate of millions than he did about the percentages he wasn’t making.

But Kyle knew it was an act. Everybody wore a persona like a space suit, designed to insulate them from the cold emptiness of life. Most people lived in that suit so long they forgot it was on, like Garcia had. Mercenary profiteering was the only way Garcia knew how to deal with the world.

“We don’t have plasma bombs,” Jorgun said, confused. “I don’t remember those being on any cargo list.”

Kyle had to revise his cynical conclusion. Not everyone wore a fake persona.

“We disguised them as cuckoo clocks,” Garcia said. His voice was laden with withering scorn, but Jorgun was as oblivious to that as he was to sarcasm.

“I don’t remember any cuckoo clocks.”

Garcia lashed out. “Do you even know what a cuckoo clock is, you big dummy?”

“Garcia!” Prudence barked at him, and Garcia bit back whatever comment he was about to add.

“No, but I know it was never on the cargo list.” Jorgun knew something was wrong, but he stuck to his guns. The kid—because it was impossible to think of him any other way than as a child—was brave.

“There weren’t any clocks, Jorgun.” Kyle couldn’t stop himself from playing the protector. “Garcia’s just upset. He’s afraid of the spiders, and he doesn’t know what to do.”

“Garcia is upset because he’s made one commission in eight hops. Garcia is upset because instead of carrying cargo, we’re carrying a criminal who can’t even pay his own fare. Garcia is upset because that flaming planet is probably crawling with spiders, and we’re flying straight towards it.” Talking about himself in the third person robbed Garcia’s rant of vitriol. Jorgun was smiling again by the end of it.

“You can get us a transport for Monterey,” Prudence said. “No passengers, though. And try to get something low on mass. We need to be nimble.”

“Can I ask the brain trust here a question?”

“Sure, Garcia,” Prudence said. Kyle was amazed at her patience.

“If we don’t find spiders on Solistar, why are we going to go looking for them on Monterey? Isn’t the point to avoid being eaten by spiders?”

Prudence answered before Kyle could.

“Can you guess how much Fleet would pay to know where the spiders’ base is?”

It wasn’t the answer he would have given.

“Information is the best cargo, Garcia.” Prudence smiled at the angry man. Kyle felt like getting angry himself. He wanted her to smile at him like that. “Its mass-to-value ratio is infinite.”

“There’s no profit in being dead,” Garcia grumbled, but he deflated like a balloon with a pinhole in it. Kyle had seen the trick done once. You stuck a piece of clear tape on the balloon, and then you could poke it with a needle and it would slowly shrink, instead of popping. Prudence was a magician, and her crew were her props. Spending days trapped in a bubble of unreal space on a tiny, fragile habitat made management a survival skill. Fleet accomplished it with discipline; corporate liners relied on the promise of money; but the captain of a free-trader had only her wits to work with.

Garcia left the bridge, grumbling, and Kyle followed after him. He needed to get out of Prudence’s presence before he said something stupid.

“Tell me the rules again, dummy.” Garcia was blocking Jorgun from leaving the ship.

“I can’t take off my hat.” Jorgun, like the rest of them, was wearing a rented rad-suit, topped off with a beekeeper’s bonnet. Multiple strips of clear plastic hung down from the broad rim, creating a bubble around the wearer’s head. It was a cosmic irony that air could penetrate the shifting, porous material, but gamma radiation could not.

“That’s right, because if you do, that stupid star will burp, and then you’ll be ugly as well as dumb. And I’m ugly enough for both of us.”

“I’m dumb enough for both of us.” Jorgun was grinning, but it made Kyle wince to hear him talk like that.

Prudence issued orders. “Kyle and I are going to look around. You two go find us a cargo. And a new puzzle for Jorgun. Do you hear me, Garcia? No bars. Puzzle stores. Got it?” She sounded less like a boss than like a mother talking to rowdy children.

“Yes, mein capitan. ” Garcia was as insouciant as a twelve-year-old.

Kyle shook his head in dismay, watching the two of them walk off. He was too young to be playing the role of father.

“It’s better than the alternative.”

She must think he was still upset over Jorgun’s comment. He shrugged it off, but she kept talking.

“Jor is dumb. He needs to remember that. He needs to tell other people that, so they don’t have an excuse when I make them pay for taking advantage of him.”

“Okay,” Kyle agreed. “But Garcia doesn’t need to be an asshole about it.”

“He is what he is.” Now she shrugged. “He won’t sell Jor for a bag of magic beans. He fears me enough to not be that careless.”

Kyle smiled wryly, but kept his comments to himself. It wasn’t fear that made Garcia obey her. How she could manipulate the man so well and yet not understand the source of her power was remarkable.

Garcia, like every other man that spent more than ten minutes in Prudence’s presence, was in love with her. Thankfully, she was blind to the effect she had on men. Otherwise things would have been even more difficult for Kyle than they already were.

Time to change the subject. “So what are we looking for?”

“Information on Monterey. Jandi’s data cube had very little, and it was last updated twenty years ago. The first stop is the public Traffic Control board. I didn’t want to check the registry from the ship, in case they were watching to see who’s looking.”

“And you’re bringing me along because you need a strong man to back you up? Or because you don’t trust me enough to let me out of your sight?”

She tried to deflate him. “If I wanted strong, I would have brought Jor.” But it didn’t work. Kyle was just happy to be with her, whatever the reason.

They met up with the other half of their crew on the patio of a busy restaurant, just after the sun went down. All around them people were shedding their rad-suits, revealing fashionable eveningwear and attractive gowns, like butterflies emerging from cocoons. Their waiter offered to take their suits, explaining that the rental company had a drop box there for tourists, and that they would deliver a fresh suit tomorrow morning before sunrise.

Kyle and Jorgun handed over their suits gratefully. Garcia had already forgotten about his suit, in the fifteen seconds since he’d had it off. He just waved in the general direction of where he had left it, and went back to trying to puzzle out which of the drinks on the menu would get him drunk quickest. Only Prudence hesitated, unwilling to give up her protective clothing.