Hugh Howey - Molly Fyde and the Blood of Billions

He thumped the Wadi one more time before pushing the doors open and stepping into the pub. The blatting traffic and yelling from outside were immediately replaced with a smoky, clamorous din that somehow managed to be worse. A wall of large shouting aliens—Humans mostly—crowded a bar running the length of one wall. The rest of the place was filled with small tables surrounded by clusters of mismatched chairs, but nobody seemed to be sitting in them. Much of the furniture had been pushed aside to create a clearing where another raucous crowd stood in a vibrating mass. Pushing and yelling, holding their beers aloft and splashing their neighbors, it looked like a bunch of Palan pirates gambling on a game of Rats.

Walter stepped closer, trying to peek between the forest of legs, but they were too dense. He went to one of the tables instead and pushed aside the collection of empties and smoldering ashtrays. Using one of the chairs, he stepped to the top of the table and took a quick look at the center of the group, trying to sate his curiosity quickly before one of the barmaids told him to get down.

It was a fight. A big man was beating on a little one, the latter’s face so covered in blue blood he couldn’t even make out its race. He tried to remember how many species bled blue as the little one’s head whipped around from a heavy blow, the crack of bone-on-bone coming just before another roar from the crowd. Long hair flew out in an arc, blonde with streaks of light blue.

Walter recognized the hair, the only thing he’d noticed from the stupid show. The little person was the woman they were after! And she was getting her ass kicked.

Walter looked around for Molly, wondering where she had gotten off to. He jumped down from the table and started for the bar, saw the thick wall of patrons there and stopped. He turned back to the fight, not knowing what to do.

The Wadi clawed him through his secret pocket, tiny claws jabbing into his flesh, the stinging pinpricks spreading as the creature’s toxins coursed through his veins.

Walter thumped the thing on the head and fought to come up with a plan. He cursed Molly for disappearing whenever he seemed to really need her.

The man standing over Molly yelled across the room to the others. “Hey boss? I think she is local. Been voting as if, anyway.”

The man with the beard strolled over and checked a small screen. Molly groaned at him, pleading in her head for them to remove the foul rag. She gagged again and started coughing, her cheeks puffing against the tape and cloth.

“Hmmm. Pretty good cyclid count. Either she was born here, or she’s been on-planet a while.” He looked up at the larger man. “Good work. Take it all and label it Bekkie for now.”

“Thanks, boss.” The brute looked down at Molly and winked, as if this were good news for both of them. “Five liters,” he said to himself. “That’s a buck seventy ounces at eight thousand an ounce.”

“Divided by two!” the other guy yelled.

The man frowned and glowered at the speaker. After a moment, he smiled again. “Still, I can’t even do the math, which means a good night. A very good night.”

He whistled to himself and picked up a needle from the tray before inspecting it. Molly raised her head and yelled into the blood-soaked rag; she banged the back of her skull against the metal table and flexed her biceps as hard as she could against the restraints.

“Ah, there’s our vein,” the guy said. He slapped her arm with a flat palm. Molly looked down at her elbow as he brought the needle close. She tried moving it side to side to avoid the plunge, but the man just tightened his grip, causing the purple web beneath her skin to stand out even more.

He shoved the needle into the biggest of them.

Molly felt a burning sensation up and down her arm. She groaned as blood squirted out the back of the needle and splashed against the man’s apron.

“Damn!” He fumbled with a valve at the end of the needle and got it closed; Molly fought to not pass out. She watched him place several strips of tape across the inserted device before untangling coils of clear tubing and hanging empty bags from the side of the table.

Across the room, the other two men chuckled at something, making the scene too bizarre for Molly to comprehend. The laughter and horror didn’t mix, they just wrapped around each other, swirling like oil and water.

A distant voice called out amid the laughter: “Hey Paulie, anything you spill is coming out of your cut!”

And that really got them going.

Anlyn pulled out of Edison’s embrace as the hyperdrive traces flared up on the nav screen. She tapped him on the shoulder and pointed. Edison glanced at her screen and grunted at the results.

“We just missed them!” Anlyn said.

Edison brought up a different display on his own screen and typed something on the keyboard. The info showed on Anlyn’s as well, but she couldn’t read any of the numbers. Still, she didn’t have to know what they said. The intensity of the signatures was more than enough.

“This is impossible,” Anlyn said. “You don’t see traces like this except for right after someone jumps. These are too fresh to be—”

“They’re a week old,” Edison said.

“No, love, these are brand new.” She hit the zoom button, bringing the scope out. The traces were spread throughout the entire system. Hundreds of them. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

“The computer says they’re a week old, and it has a destination.”

“ A destination? They all go to the same place?”

Edison grunted. “You’re right. This doesn’t make any sense.”

“What? Where do they lead?” She hated not being able to read the screen, relying on just the raw images.

Edison flipped over to the nav chart, pulling it up on both screens. He zoomed in on a single point.

“Here,” he said.

Anlyn couldn’t read the name under the object, but she recognized the symbol from Bern charts. It was a star. A class V star.

“They jumped into a star? So the traces are blowback.” Anlyn shook her head. “That explains the strength and age. Maybe they are a week old. But still, why would they… why jump into a star? ”

“I’m not a big fan of the prophecy,” Edison said. “You know that. But I also don’t like coincidences. Do you think—?”

“That the Bern are gone ? Mass suicide? No. Only because I’ve learned to not jump to my favorite conclusions.”

“Give me an alternative.”

“Okay…” Anlyn thought for a moment. “They scuttled their ships before moving off, keeping them out of our hands.”

Edison frowned.

“Or they… maybe it was a waste-disposal program.”

“Only if they were disposing themselves of ships. A dozen of these signatures come up as the same class and model as this one.”

“Maybe there’s a rift in the center of that star!”

Edison shook his head. “Wouldn’t work. The mass in the star would just leak out to the other side. No, I think they did it on purpose. Maybe they figured out some way to slingshot past your barrier. They could be attacking Drenard right now.”

“Don’t say that. And we were on Drenard a week ago. I—should we still go explore one of these stations, or should we jump along a few trade routes until we bump into someone? There’s a ton of settled worlds on this map.”

“What about jumping after them?” Edison asked.

“ What ? Jump into the center of that star? Have you melted your mind?”

“It was just a suggestion,” Edison said. “Then again, think about it, think about where we are. This is the front line of the Bern-Drenard war. We’re standing in the trenches of the most important standoff in your history. Do you really think they just left? Or that they killed themselves? I think it’s more likely they aren’t here because the front has moved elsewhere .”