Robert Holdstock - The Dark Wheel

Wherever he looked he could see the shadow of the Cobra, rising up in the Witchlight, a great, killer beast, closing on its prey.

And his father's face…

The sudden alarm, the sudden anger, and yet…and yet Jason Ryder had known.

His grieving, mind-stunned son just knew that his father had been more aware of the danger than he had let on. It had been in his face, in the tension in the cabin, in the slow, deliberate words that he had spoken during the approach run to hyperspace.

Jason had known that his life was in danger. He had been ready for it, ready to save his son in the event of attack…

It made no sense. But for the moment Alex felt only loss, the loss of a man he had loved. Both his parents were gone, now. His homeworld would seem an empty, uninviting place.

Behind him, the door opened softly and the grey-suited figure of a nurse appeared. She reproved him mildly for being out of bed, but seemed pleased by his apparently calm mental state.

There followed what seemed like a constant stream of visitors. First the doctor, scanning him for tension and psychic repression. The medic was not pleased. He more or less said, 'Young man, your father is dead and it would do you no harm to shed a few tears. It's all there, all the grief, all the sadness. It'll do you no good to deny it.'

'I'll grieve for my father,' Alex said back angrily, coldly. 'I'll grieve among the ashes of the pirate that killed him. And not until.'

'Will you indeed.'

'Yes,' Alex stated defiantly. 'I will. Indeed.'

After the doctor had gone, the man from the Galactic Medical Co-operative came, fussily checking up on Alex's medical insurance, making sure that he was covered for all aspects of the treatment, including his Faraway transit home.

Then the police, two lean-faced men, wearing the grey cloaks and silver waistcoats of the Narcotics Investigation Department. What cargo had the Avalonia been carrying? Why would a pirate be so interested in him as to follow him to a Corporate State world? Had his father ever transported drugs? Firearms? Slaves? What about alien substances: Manjooza, fear glands, Marswurt? What was said in the moments before destruction? Would he recognise the ship again? What were its markings?

Alex told them everything he could remember. Everything he'd seen.

Everything he'd heard…

Except for the fact that his father had clearly known the danger.

And except for the word Raxxla.

The police left. They were not satisfied. Alex had just received his solo pilot's licence, so he could make his own way back to his homesystem, but he should notify them of what route he was taking.

Raxxla..

Alex watched them go, their Viper a slim, evil-looking ship as it rolled and sped away from the hospital vessel. His mood matched the dim-lit room, matched the gloom-grey of the storms that were building up on the world below. Leesti's oceans looked wild and cold, now, its clouds great charcoal coloured swirls of anger above the ragged, mountainous land.

Raxxla.

What could it be? What could it mean?

At midnight, still resting and recouperating (care of the Leesti Medical Authority), a small green light winked on in his room. Alex, still awake, frowned then realised that he was being monitored.

'What is it?' he asked the empty room, and a nurse's voice whispered, 'There's a holoFac message coming through for you. They've requested a tightbeam. Will you receive?'

Alex sat up in bed. No-one knew he was here. Did they? He frowned, and said, 'Sure.'

'Will you accept the charge against your CR?'

Curiouser and curiouser. Since he was broke, and without credit until he sorted out his GMC insurance, it was easy for him to say, 'Yes.'

In the middle of the room the air suddenly shimmered white, small bright particles flying off in all directions around the gradually defined shape of a man. He was tall, but slightly stooped. As the whiteness of the image resolved into colour, the whiteness of the man stayed. His hair was long and snowy, his beard ragged. His face had a touch of colour. His eyes were small, gleaming points among the wrinkles. He was smiling. He wore a tattered trader's uniform, and one arm hung limp by his side. Even his boots were worn down, and the toes were split. The handlaser at his side had seen the same better days as the rest of his equipment.

'You the Ryder Boy?' this apparition of run-down age asked. The voice creaked, a gruff, battered tone, the voice of a man who had breathed hard vacuum.

'That's me. Alex Ryder. And you?'

Alex climbed out of bed and went to stand before the life-sized holoFac.

The old man watched him, and chewed. Then he spat. The gobbet of stained spittle seemed to fly straight towards Alex's shoulder and he winced and jerked slightly to one side, before realising that nothing could travel into real space from the holo.

'You don't remember me,' the old man said. 'That's clear enough. But I remember you.'

'Give me a name.'

'Rafe Zetter. Trader of old. Traded with your father for many years, till we parted company on account of a certain issue which, you might say…caused a difference of opinion between us.'

'Slaves,' Alex said quickly. He remembered Rafe, now. But what had happened to the man? He was old before his time. He was the same age as Jason Ryder would have been, but looked twenty years more.

'Slaves is right,' Rafe said. 'I ran my life on the edge of a Viper's sting…' trader parlance for 'one jump ahead of the law'. 'But by the time I indulged that little whim, my ass was hard iron. I somehow made it to hell 'n back. That's where I am now.'

'In hell?'

'Broke. '

Alex nodded, picking up slowly on the trader slang. An 'iron ass' was a ship that was well enough defended — shields, missiles and lasers — to make a skim run through any system at all, even an anarchist's paradise like Sotiqu. All hell and then some would come at you if you tried to trade in such a chaotic system. 'Hell 'n back' meant that Rafe had tasted the good life, bought with the profits of his illegal trading, but that it had all gone wrong.

It always went wrong.

Rafe said, 'I was damn sorry to hear about Jason. A good man. A good friend of old, and a man I still respect.'

'It didn't happen but eight hours ago,' Alex said coldly. 'How the hell do you get to hear about it.'

Rafe Zetter chuckled, then spat again, and again Alex couldn't help ducking. The spittle vanished at the holoFac's edge, and Alex felt a chill of irritation. 'You got your father's temper, young Alex. Maybe you've even got some of his skills.'

'Answer my question, old man. How do you manage to know about my father?

How did you find me?'

Watching him from the holo, Rafe chewed, smiled and considered. Alex tensed, waiting for the next high velocity spit-transmission.

Rafe said, 'I repeat, Alex. I had great respect for Jason Ryder. For what he was, and what he was doing.'

'He was a good man,' Alex said. 'And an honest trader.'

'He was a damn sight more than that,' Rafe said loudly, and spat. Alex dodged. The ghostly holoFac image shimmered and blurred slightly.

'What does that mean?'

Rafe Zetter leaned forward so that his grizzled features seemed almost able to kiss the younger man. 'He was a combateer, Alex. One of the best. No way should he have died like he did…'

'My father was a trader, not a combateer,' Alex said, startled and disturbed by what Rafe was implying.

'Guess again, sonny.'

'But it sickened him to fire shots in anger.'

'Maybe,' Rafe said drily. 'But it didn't stop him. How else do you think he made it as a trader all those years? Dammit, Alex, even if your cargo is sour-cream and pickles there's someone's going to try and take it from you.

Your father was a combateer of the highest calibre…?'