Red Noise Read online

  Screwball’s rage pushed him through the fog, and he fumbled in his pocket for his knuckles, twisted in the lining. Raj stepped neatly and dealt him a second rabbit punch, and he reeled. Ditz was gone. Blood streamed hot down his face and his shirt felt warm. He swung at Raj, but, angry and pain-muddled, only managed a slap, barely catching the guy’s chin.

  “Shit!” Raj rubbed his face with his fingers. “If you get blood on me I’ll kill you.”

  Screwball hadn’t been watching Raj’s pal, and he realized his oversight when she elbowed him in the side of the head. He hit the far bulkhead and saw stars, while she reeled off-balance.

  The thought “two on one” made it through his skull to part of his brain that could do some good, and he fumbled to back away. They let him go, which he counted as a miracle. Distracted when the hatch to the dock made a noise, they left themselves open for Screwball to hurl his brass knuckles at Raj’s head.

  “Welcome to Station 35,” he yelled at the opening hatch, breaking into a run and technically fulfilling his role as welcoming committee, if not the point. “Hope you like assholes!”

  He laughed his idiot head off as a pissed-off Raj pursued.

  DOCKMASTER’S TOUR

  The dockmaster, whose name tag read “Preston”, was rail-thin and had an expression like he’d just smelled something nasty. If his black jumpsuit was a uniform, it was hard to tell given its shapelessness and obvious stains. He didn’t bother to hide his effort to crane his neck to see into the Miner’s ship behind her before he refocused his eyes on her and grudgingly offered a hand.

  “Welcome to Station 35,” he said, and disengaged from the handshake like dropping a dead frog. “You never been here before, that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  He nodded. “Gotta inspect your ship and give you a scan before you come aboard.”

  The Miner frowned at him. “You’ve scanned my ship eight times already.”

  “And now I’ll do it again,” he said, smug.

  She couldn’t even pretend to be surprised. Every pissant little pseudo-authority out there had their own way to get their kicks. He didn’t have the spit-and-polish look of the guys who love to give fines. Spit maybe, but no polish. She guessed he was looking to confiscate contraband, or “contraband”, and sell it off, probably right back to her. Well, he could knock himself out.

  A few minutes of peering and poking, accompanied by disappointed grunts at each promising – and empty – hiding spot, confirmed that theory.

  “Just selling ore?” he asked when he apparently got tired of prying in the cargo hold.

  “Only thing of value on this heap.”

  “Let me see your claim docs,” he said, but didn’t sound hopeful. She pulled them up on the cargo area display, showing the orbital path of the loose cluster of rubble she called a living. The dockmaster peered at it skeptically, then punched the numbers into his wrist-mounted gadget.

  “You’ve been in range of the station for four months now,” he said, and gave her an accusing look.

  “I’ve been in the field for six,” she said. “Hit a good seam, didn’t want to leave.” Didn’t want to deal with self-important jackasses. Didn’t want to talk to anyone or explain herself. Didn’t want to get in any fights.

  Uninvited, he stuck his finger into the display and dragged. Station 35’s own orbital path showed up green, slower than her patch. “Another six month stretch like that’ll take you out to 34 next,” he said.

  That’s the plan, she thought, unless she could make it seven months. “Just passing through, I guess,” she said aloud. “I’ll be out of your hair in no time.”

  She was confused for a second by a flash of hostility before she noticed the thinning hair on top of his head. He didn’t say anything, just shut all that down and went on to the galley, peering around her mostly unused cabinets and clean cooking gadgets. He frowned, suspicious. “What’ve you been eating?”

  “Emergency rations.”

  “Christ, why the hell would you do that?”

  “They’re cheap, last forever, and I like them.”

  “Weirdo.”

  He poked around further, apparently trying to prove that she had some secret source of nutrition, but seemed to get bored and walked straight out again. He spent a couple of disappointed minutes tapping at pipes, then wandered to the upper deck.

  After the macabre warning sign, the Miner had expected some pushback when he saw the rifle over her bunk. He looked at it speculatively.

  “Looks military,” he said.

  “It is.”

  He eyed it a while longer, ran a finger along the barrel like he was checking for dust, but finally just said in a bored tone, “Don’t take it off your ship. Don’t sell it to nobody here, neither. Try either one, and it’s mine.” He peered at the beat-up old sword that hung beneath the rifle in a black canvas-wrapped scabbard. He pulled it a little way out to look at its gleaming sharp edge, then let the magnetic catches resheathe it with a click. He didn’t find the more dubious stuff behind well-hidden panels, and she didn’t offer to show him.

  The plant rooms were more interesting to him; he positively woke up. He craned his neck this way and that, sniffing around. The Miner tensed every time he stuck his nose in a bloom and snorted.

  “The hell are they?”

  “Flowers,” she said, and when he turned an annoyed eye on her, amended that to, “Orchids.”

  “What, do you get high on them? Eat the petals?”

  “No. They look nice.”

  “Hallucinate, you mean.”

  “No, they just look nice. Don’t you think so?”

  He grunted and shrugged. Philistine. “There’s import restrictions,” he said. “Can’t risk the hydroponics. Diseases, you know. Might have to impound to quarantine.”

  She bit the inside of her lip. “I’m not taking them off the ship. No danger to the hydroponics from here.”

  “Can’t be too careful with hydroponics,” he said, warming to his subject. “Never know what diseases plants might carry. Critters. Viruses. Could wipe out our food supply.”

  She let that hang in the air, waiting for him to come out with the bribe demand or make her offer it.

  “Last station had a test,” she lied. “I gave them a leaf and they had a fifty credit testing fee.”

  He wrinkled his nose and mulled it over. “They must have had fancier equipment than mine,” he said. “The fee’s a hundred here.”

  She gritted her teeth and ignored the bilious surge of disgust rising in her. “Any kind of discount for paying that directly? Save you the time of tacking it onto the invoice.”

  He grinned, all yellow and streaks. “That is the discount, lady,” he said, and then dawdled, fondling the leaves and blossoms proprietarily until she paid his damn bribe. He didn’t even bother taking a leaf.

  Apparently satisfied at finally extracting a bit of graft without too much effort, the inspection was unceremoniously over. The Miner had to walk fast to keep up with the little toad on his way out.

  They stopped just outside the airlock, the first step she’d taken onto the station, and she put her thumbprint and signature on the inspection report. It had a lot about the state of her ship’s engines, thrusters, and reactor – miscounting the number of thrusters and getting flat wrong her reactor type – and a biological analysis of her ship’s air and water, none of which he’d done. It had the wrong date, too. The two hundred credit fee was right, though. She winced, but paid.

  “You staying long?” There was a look in his eye, like there was a wrong answer to that question.

  “No,” she said. “Just long enough to sell off the metal and pick up supplies: O2, water, and fuel. When my business is done, I’ll go.”

  He nodded, and she figured she’d given the right answer. “Fuel and air you’ll get from me. Ore you’ll sell to the Company. Everything else you can find off the galleria if you’re not choosy.”

  “Don’t care who I buy fr
om,” she said, finishing the process of shutting the hatch and setting the lock, “but I prefer bids for the ore.”

  “And I’d prefer not living in the ass-hairs of the solar system. We don’t get our ‘prefers’ out here. You sell it to the Company or you haul it away with you. Just make up your mind before I unload it for the assay.”

  “What company’s that anyway?”

  “Anaconda Consolidated. This is their station.”

  The Miner took a look around the cavernous port, with its doubly-reinforced bulkheads, two armored guard shacks, and a scar on the floor from where a big steel baffle had once blocked direct access to the inner hatch. “Looks military to me.”

  “Anaconda leases it, I mean. They run it.” He eyed her sourly. “It’s theirs in every way that matters, and don’t forget it.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got a good memory.”

  “See that you do. You want me to do the assay or what?”

  She’d dealt with Anaconda before, a couple stations back. They’d been all right, not especially more corrupt or inept than anyone else, but she’d still rather have bids. And she’d really rather have a different company do the composition assay the price would be based on. Still, even with a good whack off the sale price from this single-buyer bullshit, it had to be cheaper than the fuel costs to haul it to the next station. And with the patch fees coming due on her claim, she needed cash sooner than she could reach another station. No wonder indie miners were so few and far between.

  “Yeah, all right.” She gave his pad her thumbprint, and that was that.

  They dickered about mass and carbon. She was keeping most of the biomass for plant fertilizer, and he didn’t want to bother buying the rest. But it was stupid to dump it, and legally he had to take it, so they settled for ten credits off the fuel bill, which usually ran to three thousand. The Miner reminded herself that she was literally selling shit and stale air, but she still felt cheated as she thumbprinted the pad again.

  They were done then, but he lingered, giving her that appraising look again. “It’ll be a while before I’m finished. If you’re bored or looking for some extra cash, old man Feeney can always use someone who isn’t planning to stay long.”

  Someone who might be willing to beat someone else up or maybe shed some blood, and then be gone before the law came looking. “Thanks for the tip,” she said, since “fuck you” or “die in a fire” might have offended the guy assaying her cargo.

  “Tell him I sent you if you do. Just you remember,” he called after her, “no firearms.”

  She nodded, remembering the colorful warning outside and wondering if that was his handwriting.

  THE SUBSTITUTE WELCOMING COMMITTEE

  The dock main exit released a stale smell of old rubber gaskets and the faint whiff of urine as it opened onto a wide passage that took a right turn. The walls were streaked where condensation had dripped from vents, and a faded sign high on the interior wall pointed down the hallway with a big blue arrow and friendly lettering that read, “Welcome to Cpt John Wayne Koganusan Station (#35)! This way to our Famous Galleria!”

  Under the sign stood a scrubby kid, probably in her twenties if the Miner could still judge, gawking down the passageway.

  “Hope you like assholes!” someone was yelling, chased by a taller bald kid in leathers.

  The kid under the sign stooped to pick up what looked like metal knuckles, made a punching gesture at the fleeing one, and seemed to notice the Miner. “Hey lady!” Her grin showed a broken front tooth.

  “Ow! Fuck! Ow!” came from away down the corridor.

  “Nice place you got here,” said the Miner. The kid looked at her like she was stupid.

  “It’s a shit pile,” said the kid. “But listen, right, we’ve got everything you could want, right. I know all the best places to get booze and drugs, or get laid. I know where to have fun, right?”

  The Miner glanced at her, and believed she knew all the places to get drugs. “Pass.”

  The kid’s eyes went wide, showing intricate tattoos on the sclera. She’d had money at some point, to get those done, but looked to have pissed it away. “Whoa, whoa. Not so hasty, right? I bet you’re here for a fight, ri–”

  “Wrong.”

  “Come on, where’d you get those scars, then? Don’t go work for Feeney, he’s a tool. Come on and work for Angelica! Punch bozos, it’s fun!”

  “I’m not here to fight, kid. I don’t punch anyone I’m not willing to kill.”

  The kid looked skeptical but pressed on. “So you’re what, a trucker? A miner? Mining sucks! I can get you rich, lady, all you need’s a little luck and you’ll make bank at Lady Angelica’s casino. You want to be rich, don’t you? I’m good luck, I am.”

  “Not a gambler.”

  “Looking for company, then? I bet it gets lonely out there…”

  The Miner gave her a level look and bit back a remark. “Pass.”

  Taking a step in the direction of the “famous” galleria, the Miner felt a tightness in her joints as old augmentation implants reacted to the first whiff of adrenaline, before she consciously registered the characteristic snik! of an old-fashioned switchblade.

  “Don’t be like that,” the kid was saying, quieter now. “I’ve been helpful, right? At the very least you ought to give me a tip, lady.”

  The Miner turned slowly and saw the kid standing in what she probably considered a fighter’s stance, holding the switchblade like a screwdriver. The Miner took the knife away from her. “Pass.”

  The girl’s expression flashed from shocked to angry, and she showed her teeth.

  “Don’t start something you can’t finish,” the Miner said mildly.

  “Give that back,” the kid growled.

  The Miner grasped the blade with both hands, poised to snap it, but the kid threw up her palms in surrender.

  “Hang on, hang on! That was my grandma’s knife; she used that to shiv Rudy Houston, right?”

  The Miner stared, her brain refusing to engage with that sentence. “I’m going to go that way,” she said. “If nobody follows me, I’ll leave it on the deck at the next hatch. Right?”

  The kid nodded mutely, and amazingly didn’t follow.

  WELCOME TO THE GALLERIA

  The galleria wasn’t entirely the rathole the Miner had imagined. It was a tall atrium in the middle of the station, and its overhead windows had been the eyes of the spider she’d observed from orbit. Back when this had been a military outpost, it would have been two connected decks: a lower area for assembling and organizing, and an upper area for support. She could close her eyes and picture it, complete with navy ratings and Marines milling around.

  The upper decking had been sawn away to clear out a big central area like a park under the trio of sun lamps arranged around the windows. The remains of the second floor ringed the space with a deckway and storefronts. Neon lights and animated signs flickered and sent shadows like campfire at the entrances to shuttered businesses, most closed with no more care than turning off the lights. There’d been a tattooist and gene-modder, VR rigger, a Fitz’s Drugs, and a lawyer. The open doors showed that everything not bolted down had been taken, though a number of stripped bolts protruded from the decking, too. The Lady Luck casino, a bar called Ama no Gawa, and the security station remained dubiously open on the first deck, and there was a big sign for a hotel called Ad Astra on the deck above.

  The space in the middle had scattered tables and chairs, a bunch of raised beds hosting some sickly-looking palm trees, and a stage in the center. In some designer’s fevered mind, and maybe even recently, it had probably bustled with shoppers and loungers and young people having loud and picturesque fun. The Miner could only make out two people, one asleep at a table and clutching a bottle, and the other in a black uniform, dozing in a chair in front of the security station. It was 1100 station time and the day lights were on, so either the place was seriously nightshifted or just dead.

  She contacted her ship and ask
ed for a heads-up map.

  “Sorry, boss, they don’t have one in the usual place. There’s a directory listing, though.”

  “Send it,” she said, ignoring the sinking feeling and bringing the text up on her heads-up display. Green text floated up her retina, lazily showing a list that was either vastly out of date or just bullshit. Three ore buyers, wouldn’t that have been nice. Even being bogus, though, the listings helped her orient herself a bit. The galleria had the two rings she could see, full of the ghosts of shops, and then straight stubby alleys nominally at compass points with west leading to the port. North, just clockwise from the casino’s big neon-lit windows, had a provisioner under the name Anaconda, and she ambled over that way past the drunk.

  Heads popped up like meerkats’ as she approached the casino, then settled down again as she passed. She didn’t like the odds that they were actually ignoring her, and she walked slowly so she could hear if anyone approached.

  The provisioner – Anaconda Supplies – bore a sign in the window that claimed to have been “Rated highly in a customer satisfaction survey!” which was just vague and sad enough to be true. The shop inside was tiny, practically a closet. All the actual goods, if they had any, would be tucked away somewhere in the bowels of the station or maybe even in a parking orbit around the rock. The walls were instead coated in ads, a lot of them real paper, for various brands of yeast feed, entomo-protein bricks, Real*Chikken (which the Miner had to admit was actually pretty good) and so on. There was even a big animated ad for France! brand oxygen/nitrogen blend (“Avec that je ne sais quoi that makes Paris smell like Paree!”) which she stared at for a while to be sure wasn’t a joke, and then still wasn’t sure.

  There was a terminal at the counter facing the shop, and the Miner spent a few minutes typing in her short order. It asked for a water order in milliliters, which was laughable – if any station had ever filled a water order to within ten liters, she’d have been shocked. The provisioner herself appeared from a back room. She was short and skinny, and looked at the Miner like she might steal the ads off the walls but for the provisioner’s own vigilance. Still, she said hello gracefully enough, and put on a pair of reading glasses to examine the order.