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Sharrow stared into the unreal grey depths of the holo-screen for a while,
then sighed.
`Ship?'
`Ready, client Lady Sharrow,' the computer toned.
`You're not an AI, are you?'
`I am not an Artificial Intelligence. I am a semi-'
`Never mind. Okay; thanks, I'm finished here.'
3: A TROPHY OF A PAST DISPUTE
17 Conscience Of Prisoners
A warm rain fell on Ikueshleng. The private spacecraft
Wheeler Dealer buttoned down through the darkness of
Outer Jonolrey towards the fifty-kilometre diameter patch of sunlight that
presided over the port. The ship lanced through the encircling clouds of
drizzle, its dull-red glowing hull leaving a trail of steam behind it in the
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dark air, then glinting watery gold as it entered the cloud-filtered shaft of
reflected sunlight beamed down onto the enclave from the orbiting mirrors.
The craft puffed vapour as it adjusted its fall and flexed stubby legs. It
thumped onto and rolled along a concrete runway on the outskirts of the port.
It braked and turned, trundling towards a slowly pulsing holo showing
continually descending red and green horizontal lines, stopping when it was in
the centre of the holo.
The square of concrete beneath dropped slowly away, taking the ship with it.
`Shit,' Tenel said, glancing at the screen beside the lock door. `Spot check.'
Sharrow checked the screen. In the hangar space they'd been shuffled to, there
was a tired male official in Port
Inspection overalls holding a clipboard.
`Aw, penetration, man,' Choss said. 'Ain't payin the Ik's fuckin import dues
on this spit.' She started fishing bottles of trax spirit out of her kitbag
and leaving them in the corridor by the lock door.
Sharrow watched as the official in the hangar outside yawned and then spoke to
his clipboard; his voice carne out of the screen. `Hello, persons on the
vessel
Wheeler Dealer,'
he said. `Transport Standards and Customs check;
please have your vehicle documentation ready and baggage prepared for
inspection.'
`Yeah, yeah,' Tenel said, finger on the screen transmit button. `On our way.'
`One at a time, please,' the official said, sounding bored. `Crew first.'
Tenel flicked a data chip out of the screen slot and, shaking her head,
stepped into the lock; the door slid open.
The air lock was a standard single-aperture rotating-cylinder design that
meant you couldn't have both doors open at once. The door rolled closed again
and they heard the inner sleeve and the outer door rotate together.
Sharrow and Choss watched the official nod to Tenel when she stepped off the
external access ramp, take the data chip and stick it onto his clipboard, then
inspect her kitbag and wave the clipboard up and down her body a couple of
times. He tapped an entry on the clipboard. `Next,' he said.
`Loada shit, man,' Choss muttered. She made a farting noise with her mouth and
stepped into the lock. Sharrow was looking at the HandCannon, trying to recall
if Ikueshleng required a licence for bringing weaponry in. She couldn't
remember, and she wasn't sure that going to pick up the gun she'd deposited
with Left Luggage here was such a good idea. She shrugged. The worst that
could happen would be they'd confiscate it. She stuck it back in her satchel.
`Next, please,' the man's voice said. The lock door opened; she stepped in.
The lock half rotated, then stopped.
She stood there, trapped in the metre-diameter space. She pressed the control
patches. Nothing happened. She got the gun out of her satchel, slung the
satchel over her head and crouched down.
She thought she heard something, then the lock started to rotate very slowly.
The craft's hull metal came into view at the leading edge of the lock's
aperture. The lock stopped again. She aimed the gun at the edge of the door.
The lock shifted suddenly, opening a gap about ten centimetres wide to the
outside. She glimpsed a vertical sliver of unoccupied hangar.
The gas grenade came in from the top of the door, hitting the deck to her
right as the lock rotated back, trapping her.
She stared, horror-struck and paralysed, at the grenade clicking away on the
floor.
For an instant she was five years old again.
A warm rain fell on Ikueshleng. Ships came and went, flying in on wings or
relying on the shape of their bodies for lift, or landing vertically, engines
screaming. Other sporadic roars were ships taking off, while every now and
again a near-subsonic pulse of sound followed by a great whoop of noise and
then a distant bellow of igniting engines announced an induction tube hurling
a craft into the atmosphere.
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Near one edge of the port's artificial plateau, a long rectangle of concrete
hinged down, producing a shallow ramp
into a brightly lit space. Rumbling up from the port's depths and out onto the
rainslicked surface apron came a tall, boxy vehicle running on four threemetre
high wheels; it was joined to another which followed it up into the drizzle,
leading another carriage behind it, and another and another.
The twenty-section Land Car started to turn before the final carriages had
risen onto the concrete surface. The vehicle's front wheels ran through
puddles on the apron, sending waves washing out to the edges of the shallow [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]