Children of Scarabaeus (2 page)

Edie felt like all the air had been pushed out of her lungs. A surge of adrenaline set her heart racing, and Finn flinched as his chip reacted.

“How long?” he asked Cat.

“My buddy in TrafCon just picked them up on a node beacon. They’ll be in-system in about three minutes. Then we’ve got maybe fifteen until they dock. The general alert will go up in a few seconds and I don’t think Barossa’s guests are going to be happy.”

Beagle looked petrified. “They’re after me.”

“Three battlecruisers? Don’t flatter yourself.” Finn took Edie’s arm and pushed up her sleeve. He gave her a questioning look and she nodded. They had to try it. He flashed a microbial flare across her skin and injected the implant inside her elbow. With alarm, Edie noticed that his hands shook. She tried to calm down to ease the interference along the leash.

Beagle wasn’t far wrong. His ship, or perhaps even his body, had been tagged. She’d expected it. The Crib needed Edie, and Edie needed neuroxin. Talas was the only place to find the drug, so the Crib had to simply sit back and wait for her, or someone she paid, to steal it. The trader needn’t have bothered with his disguise—Natesa and her cronies wanted him to steal the implants and lead them back to Edie.

The station’s PA system chimed. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is TrafCon announcing for your pleasure the imminent
arrival of our noble allies, represented today by three warships chock full of friendly milits.” There was more than a touch of insolence in the young male voice.

The reaction on the concourse was immediate and dramatic. People ran and yelled. Some pushed their way toward the docking bays, others to the lifts leading to the cargo bays. Many gathered around the windows that overlooked the jump nodes, staring out with disbelief written on their faces. Edie turned in that direction just as the incoming node flared in an arc of light. The light faded and three white dots emerged.

Beagle’s face paled and sweat popped out of his pores. “What the hell is the Crib doing out here? They have no jurisdiction.”

“Crib Interstellar Patrol has ordered us to shut down the docks,” the voice continued over the PA. “It will take us a few minutes to comply.”

Cat grinned. “That’s Digger up in TrafCon. Barossa can’t argue with three battlecruisers, but I asked Digger to give all these guilty consciences time to leave if they want to.”

Plenty of people wanted to leave. The concourse was in pandemonium and the docking bays were no doubt even worse. Beagle looked around at the mayhem.

“The box, please?” Cat asked sweetly.

Beagle gave it one more try. “I got you good stuff and lots of it. The price has gone up.”

“One implant or fifty—makes no difference.” Cat dangled the key to the cargo hold in front of his face. “You can’t sell it anywhere else. It’s worth nothing to anyone except her. You get paid what we agreed on. Hand it over.”

The payment was all the valuable antiques from Captain Rackham’s collection on the
Hoi
. Beagle had nothing to complain about—other than the tag on his ship, which would soon land him in a Crib jail unless he could pull off a disappearing act.

Beagle clutched the box to his chest, unwilling to give it up, his face scrunched with indignation. Crib milits were only
a few minutes from docking—Finn had no time for games. He grabbed the trader’s forearm and twisted it away from his body, then closed his other hand around the box. When Beagle didn’t let go, Finn pushed forward suddenly and jarred the man’s shoulder, knocking him off balance. Finn easily extracted the box from his fingers, and Beagle, a head shorter than the big man and not in the best shape, didn’t try to get it back.

“Is it working?” Cat asked Edie.

Edie had felt nothing when the implant first went in. Now a calm presence seeped through her veins, blanketing and shielding her from the surrounding hyperstimulation of colors, sounds, and movements. The nausea that had been her constant companion for a week was lifting, and she moaned in relief. Her senses dulled but felt more closely linked to reality.

“I feel okay,” she said. “I’m
okay
.” After having no neuroxin in her bloodstream for days, the sudden surge of the drug had a dramatic effect. Her biocyph-enhanced cells immediately metabolized the chemical—toxic to other humans—and its byproducts flooded her nerve endings. Her muscles relaxed and she sagged in the chair. Finn’s warm fingers closed over her wrist as he checked her pulse.

Cat looked over Finn’s shoulder at the approaching vessels. When Edie followed her gaze, she saw that ships were already fleeing Barossa and heading to the outgoing node.

“You sorted out our ride?” Cat asked.

“Over there.” Finn nodded toward the area where he’d been talking earlier to a ship’s captain. Then he leaned over Edie with concern in his eyes and pushed sweat-soaked hair off her forehead, cupped her chin with his hand—a steady hand, this time. “Okay?” Finn’s intense gaze burned through her as his thumb dragged along her jaw before dropping away, his expression fading to something lighter and safer.

He pulled her out of the chair, supporting her with his arm around her back, and picked up one of their two duffel bags. Edie felt dizzy and numb but already stronger as the
neuroxin pumped through her body. The knowledge that she was not going to die—not from neuroshock, anyway—was enough to keep her conscious and upright.

She turned to Beagle as Finn tried to get her walking. “Your ship’s tagged.” Her voice was drowned out by the noise of the panicking crowds. She repeated herself, louder this time. “
Your ship’s tagged.
They followed you here. Get off the station and pay a good infojack to destroy that tag.”

“What?”
Beagle was furious. He rubbed his wrenched shoulder. “Why is the Crib interested in one lousy box of meds?”

“Just leave.” Cat tossed the cargo hold key at him before moving quickly through the crowd toward the security checkpoint.

“It’s you, isn’t it?”
Beagle yelled. His panicked eyes bored into Edie’s. “They want
you
. Who the hell
are
you?”

The desire to explain made Edie pause. Who was she? The Crib’s protégée and pawn, its most successful cypherteck, its least loyal citizen. Unwitting creator of the new face of Scarabaeus, the world she’d tried to save. Abductee, fugitive, Finn’s partner in crime and his constant companion until they could find a way to cut the leash.

No words came out of her mouth. Her brain was still sluggish. And this trader was irrelevant, in the end. She’d warned him—there was nothing more she could do.

Finn turned Edie around and they followed Cat, with Yasuo behind them holding the second duffel bag. Finn’s strength and heat bled through her jacket and into her bones. Every step was easier than the last, and her senses were settling back to normal. For the first time in a week, her thoughts coalesced into meaningful patterns and she was able to concentrate on more than just staying conscious. The captain up ahead…Passage off the station…A ride to the Fringe. And then, helping the Fringers with the cryptoglyph locked inside Finn’s head—the key to saving the outlawed planets from ecological meltdown.

The concourse streamed with people rushing in every di
rection. The imminent arrival of three Crib battlecruisers was out of the ordinary on any station. But the lowlifes on Barossa had more reasons than most to consider it an emergency—and hundreds of spacers and dozens of ships did not intend to hang around to find out what was going on. A mass exodus was under way.

The security checkpoint was the barrier between the concourse and the docking bays. It only worked one way—arrivals were checked on their way in, departing spacers were not. Barossa was just outside the border of Crib space and had no interest in following Crib procedures when it came to tracking people’s movements. A couple of rovers, an escaped convict, a cypherteck on the Crib’s most-wanted list—they should have no trouble leaving.

The woman who’d been waiting for them stood up and appraised the group. She wore clean, faded clothes and a cap on her head stamped with her ship’s logo. The no-nonsense, hard lines on her face suggested she was a seasoned space traveler.

“This is Captain Xin,” Finn said. “She’s agreed to take us to Tallyho Station on the
Medusa
.”

The captain nodded a greeting to Finn. “Are you ready to leave? We have company, it seems. The Crib doesn’t send Lines unless it means business, and I’ve no desire to get caught up in Crib business.”

“I agree,” Finn said. “We’re ready.”

“Then there’s just the matter of payment.” She had a thick accent. “I thought you said there were four of you?”

Yasuo had disappeared.

“Shit.” Cat looked around frantically. “Thought he was right behind us.”

They scanned the crowd. In the hustle it was impossible to spot him.

Finn handed Cat his duffel bag. “I’ll go look. You pay up and wait for me.”

He didn’t have tell them not to board without him. That could mean a death sentence for him. Not only was the
chip in his head wired to explode if Edie died, it would also detonate if they were separated by more than two thousand meters. Having recruited him as Edie’s bodyguard, the rovers had thought the setup provided a good incentive for Finn to protect her.

“We leave in three minutes,” Xin called after Finn.

“Kid’s probably buying a souvenir,” Cat told her with a tight smile.

Edie knew better. Yasuo had always struck her as a bit skittish. He’d been silent during their plans over the past week, just going along with them, never really saying what he wanted to do. Now he’d finally decided to go his own way. That would’ve been fine if it weren’t for the three battlecruisers about to dock. They couldn’t risk him being captured by the Crib. Unlike Corky, he knew their intended destination.

While Edie kept a lookout for Yasuo, Cat completed the payment with Xin. Eager to depart before Barossa shut down the docks, the captain became increasingly anxious as the seconds ticked by.

“Four minutes until the docks are locked down,” the PA announced.

“I’m afraid I can’t wait any longer. Follow me.” Xin looked from Cat to Edie. “Unless you want—” She stopped suddenly, staring at something over Edie’s shoulder. Her brow pinched. “We have a little problem.”

Edie spun around to see what she was looking at. Every holobill and viz on the concourse showed the same display.
Fugitive at large. Apprehend upon sight by order of Crib Central Command. Reward offered.

Accompanying the text was a larger-than-life revolving mug shot of Edie.

CHAPTER 2

“Jezus…” Edie instinctively ducked her head.

The display cycled to show more faces—Finn’s, Corky’s, Yasuo’s, Gia’s, Cat’s.
Known associates.
Finn’s mug shot came from his Crib serf file. The others were stamped with Stichting Corp’s logo. The Crib must have demanded the
Hoi
’s crew roster and personnel files from the company. Now someone on the approaching ships had jacked into Barossa’s PA system and stuck their faces on every information board on the station.

Except that Cat Lancer’s mug shot was of someone else entirely—a gaunt blue-eyed woman with midtoned skin. The new ident that the infojack Achaiah had set up for Cat had involved using a worm to change Cat’s appearance in records across the Reach.

Finn was suddenly at Edie’s side, his jacket collar raised in an attempt to hide the lower part of his face. His appearance broke Xin out of her trance.

“The Crib wants you, and that’s reason enough for me to pretend I never saw you,” Xin said. “But the deal’s off. I’m sorry. You might have better luck with—”

Finn cut her off with a quick motion of his hand. He didn’t need to hear her suggestions. “Cat, get a refund. Plan B.”

Cat nodded. She and Finn must have already discussed this while Edie had been too sick to get involved in their plans.

Finn took Edie’s elbow and guided her with purpose toward the security check. With all the bustle and panic around them, no one paid much attention to the wanted fugitives in plain sight. Yet.

“Yasuo?” she asked as they hurried along wide corridors lined with windows overlooking the docks. She had to jog to keep up with him.

“Gone. If the Crib gets him he’ll crack on the first question. We need a new ride and a new destination. Turn on your e-shield to minimum. From this point we can’t leave a DNA trace.”

Edie obeyed, wondering what plan B was and how it might affect their plans once they reached the Fringe. From Tallyho, a midsized Fringe station, they’d planned to find a ride farther out into the Reach. Cat had a few contacts from her rover missions over the last few years, and through them they’d hoped to find worlds that needed their help. They’d never told Yasuo the reason they wanted to go to the Fringe, other than to hide out—only Cat knew about the cryptoglyph—but he could still reveal names and places to the Crib. They had only minutes to change their plans entirely.

It seemed Finn had thought ahead. They’d reached the end of the docks, and the crowd thinned out. Finn turned a corner and swiped a key through a door labeled
Rescue and Tug
.

“Courtesy of Cat’s buddy in TrafCon,” he said in response to Edie’s questioning look.

She followed him down narrow, branching corridors. Behind them, Cat raced to catch up.

“What did you give your buddy for the key?” Edie asked Cat.

“Access codes for the
Hoi
’s cargo holds so he could sell the rigs before the scrap merchants picked up the ship. He’s given us more than the key. I just spoke to him—he’s clear
ing as many ships as he can for departure before the Crib shuts the place down.”

Cat took the lead, and after a couple more turns stopped at a numbered hatch.

“This is it.”

Finn’s key snapped open the hatch, which led to a short gangway. They piled inside. While the airlock cycled, Finn rummaged in the duffel bag and pulled out three devices that looked like narrow collars.

“Breathers,” he explained. “The ship is pressurized, but not with breathable air. Hold still.”