Balance of Terror (5 page)

Moon watched as the display moved down one row and began scrolling in the opposite direction. “I even tried searching on the name, not just here in Toltuk, but in nearby cities and towns as well. No luck.”

The display scrolled another two rows.

“Kad Minslok appears to like puzzles,” Srin finally observed. “He used one to smuggle a comms chip to you, remember? Maybe this is a puzzle as well. It’s the only thing I can think of, because if this is nothing but a simple search, we could be here for centuries trying to find this man.”

Moon brightened. Srin’s guess about Gauder’s name being a puzzle was the best suggestion she’d heard all morning.

“Maybe there’s a trick around his name?” she mused aloud. “G-a-u-d-e-r. If we take the simplest strategy of reversing the letters, it becomes ‘Reduag’.”

“Try it. Use the permutations as search terms.” Srin’s voice was getting fainter. “Maybe something will come up.”

Moon drew a blank with “Reduag”. And with several other variations. But the results pinged with “Durega”.

“Ha!” she declared, shouting at the display. “Got him!” She turned to Srin but he was unconscious.

She stared at his face for a long moment. It was easier on her conscience if she interpreted what he was going through as sleep, rather than admitting that she didn’t understand the full effects of the drugs she was plying him with. For all she knew, she was putting him into a coma on a regular basis.

“Maybe I should have studied pharmacology instead of physics,” she muttered as she extended a hand to his furrowed brow. The skin remained cool beneath her touch.

Turning back to the directory results, she looked up the public information on “Durega Consulting”. The main office appeared to be an anonymous-sounding suite on the other side of Toltuk.

“Why are these places never next door?” she complained. Transferring the information to her personal unit, she cleared the display then got to her feet. She knew she was going to have to pay “Durega Consulting” a visit. The sooner the better.

Walking to the bedroom, Moon changed into a pair of loose pants and a baggy shirt, covering a slimmer-fitting tunic. She was prepared for another quick-change operation if need be. Her hand hesitated by a cabinet drawer then she thumbed it open and drew out a small projectile gun. It had been part of the pack the doctor, Leen Vazueb, had given her before she and Srin left Lunar Fifteen.

At first, when she’d been handed the weapons on the station, Moon felt a bit daring and dangerous. Then she caught a quick, inadvertent glimpse of the
Velvet Storm
’s armoury and knew that what she and Srin had been given were the equivalent of small pebbles next to building-destroying boulders. Dismayed, and a little embarrassed, she had buried the guns deep in their packs, determined never to use them, and yet here she was, stroking the cold composite barrel while she checked its ammunition level.

Had Marentim done this to her, or had the metal-hard determination to overcome any obstacle hatched when she first fell in love with Srin? If she didn’t feel so protective towards him, would she have even tucked the pistol into the band of her trousers, covered it with tunic and shirt, then walked out of their habitat with a sense of grim resolve?

Was
love
turning her into such a stubborn creature? Moon wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to that question.

Toltuk wasn’t the kind of city that had a tourist guide. In fact, to Moon’s way of thinking, most of the residents were probably trying to find a way of getting
out
. Out of the city, off the planet, to a better world somewhere.

That might have been the common dream of many Republic citizens, but it wasn’t an easy goal to reach. For those with qualifications in important fields, they could depend on having their lives tightly regulated but, within those constraints, live a mostly care-free life. Time was generously provided for holidays on resort planets, attendance at interstellar conferences and even, as had been in Moon’s case, the use of further Republic resources – continents, spaceships, even planets – to help progress one’s research.

For those without qualifications, however – and that included the vast majority of those that lived under Republic governance – the prospects were grim. For the untrained, or those with experience in disciplines the Republic considered to be non-essential, there were no subsidised trips, no time off for good behaviour, and barely enough money to live on. Looking around, if Moon could pick one example of the depth of desperation that humans could sink to, even with their elevated position within the Republic, it would have been Marentim.

The transport car she caught on her way to Gauder’s possible office was worn and shabby and swayed on its tracks as if drunk. Moon had learnt early on, during her stay on the planet, that to meet someone’s gaze boldly was taken as an invitation, and not always to indulge in a social nicety. Unlike the brief trip she and Srin had taken while on Wessness, the carriages in Toltuk seemed to be eternally crowded with dull-eyed passengers, matching the lurching rhythm of the transport in beaten down silence. Even during what she considered to be a quiet mid-morning hour, she couldn’t find a place to sit. With no choice, Moon stood in the corner of one of the standing bays, unfocusing her eyes so she looked through people instead of at them.

It was difficult to tell the proportion of humans that lived in Toltuk. She thought that some individuals looked less than human, with strangely shaped heads and large drooping eyes, but everyone bore the same expression of sullen blankness, masking the visible differences. The statistics she had accessed reported that sixty per cent of Marentim’s population was non-human but added that the majority of them were found outside the cities. That must mean that even those she regarded as aliens were probably just downtrodden humans.

When she finally alighted at her stop, Moon noticed that the path from the station was in even worse condition than in “her” part of the city. Stained pieces of ancient litter, from decaying shreds of plastic to bent metal panels, piled up along the edges of streets. The air smelt organic, mingled with the sharp scent of ammonia. She stepped carefully along the cracked pavement, looking for the street where Durega Consulting was situated.

As she walked, the noise of surrounding traffic receded. Rows of anonymous-looking shops gave way to blocks of habitat buildings, each resembling nothing more than tall, grey dominoes.

Electric vehicles, their soft thrumming the only hint that they were in close proximity, swished past her. A street-stop, its clear walls cracked but still displaying commercials in washed-out colours, housed half a dozen loitering individuals. Moon spared them a curious glance as she walked past – an older woman looking tired yet determined, a young male shifting from one foot to another, a couple who had obviously used the stop as a rendezvous point and were just moving off, and a couple of older children tightly clutching small bags in their hands.

She was fifteen metres past them when she heard a sudden scream. Turning, she saw the young man trying to grab something from the woman’s grasp. Moon took one faltering step forward then stopped. The woman continued to hold on to whatever she had in her hands. The children watched, their mouths agape. Nearer to the confrontation, several people turned their heads, but their expressions didn’t waver.

Moon wanted to help but she felt powerless. What was she supposed to do in such a situation? Pull out her pistol and start firing wildly?

I can’t afford to draw attention to myself.

Join in with the woman’s shouts in an effort to rouse more official intervention?

Srin’s life is at stake.

Run up and kick the attacker in the shins?

If the Republic finds us, we’ll never be able to escape ever again.

Then it was over. With a last shove at the woman’s shoulder, the youth pushed her off-balance and took off through the silent traffic without a backward glance, stolen booty in his hand.

Moon watched but there was little reaction from the crowd. The woman who had been assaulted looked shaken but managed to pull a slim communications unit from the pocket of her jacket and began making a call. Nobody ran up to assist her. The two children angled away and began talking to each other in muted tones. Without a word, Moon turned her back on the frozen scene and continued on her way.

She had hated people who “didn’t get involved”, had thought of them as moral cowards. Yet here she was, behaving in exactly the same fashion. It was an uncomfortable thought on top of a pile of uncomfortable thoughts. Her steps quickened, as if her feet could outrun her distaste.

Moon tried not to think of anything in particular for the next few minutes and her relief was palpable as she spotted the building she was after. Hurrying up two flights of worn concrete steps, she stopped at a bland, dirty white door leading off the landing. The lettering on it said “Durega”.

Taking a deep breath, Moon put her hand on the access panel and pushed.

Nothing happened.

With a muttered curse, Moon tried again. The door refused to budge. In frustration, maybe substituting the unmoving panel for the thief she had seen minutes before, she kicked it. The bang didn’t improve access to the office but it brought some attention.

“What do you want?”

The voice behind her was male and brusque, but strangely accented.

Moon spun around to face the source of the question and realised she was looking at an alien. Or maybe he was one of the original descendants of Marentim natives. She had to remember that, on this world, it was the
humans
who were the aliens.

“I’m…looking for someone,” she answered. Her gaze darted over his shoulder, to another doorway a few metres away that was wedged open. That must be where he appeared from. But he had been very quick in his approach. And silent.

“Who?”

She looked straight into his cloudy green eyes and tried to pitch her voice to match his abrupt tone.

“Gauder.”

“What do you want with Gauder?”

The old Moon might have concocted some barely plausible excuse, trying to hide her intentions behind an innocuous explanation. The new Moon, still shaken by the incident at the street-stop, and the stealth with which the stranger had snuck up on her, said briskly: “None of your business.”

Alien eyes continued to watch her steadily, but she got the impression she had passed some kind of silent test.

“He’s not here.”

Moon tried for disdain next. “Really?” Pause. “Know where I can find him?”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to be found.”

“Believe me, he’ll want to,” she countered.

They stared at each other.

“I may have a number for him,” the alien finally conceded. “Hold on.”

With an odd sloping gait, he retreated down the corridor and disappeared back through the doorway. Not taking any chances, or moving her gaze from the hallway, Moon withdrew the pistol from under her shirt and tunic, clicked off the safety and hid it behind her back. Her hands felt clammy but, contrarily, her mouth was dry. She thought she felt her body start to shake.

Is this how it feels, she wondered, when a person is ready to kill? What would happen next? Would the alien come out of his office shooting? Would he try to wrestle her to the ground? Was he about to turn her over to the local authorities? She adjusted the hold on her weapon, grasping the handle tighter.

Despite her attention on the corridor and the partially open doorway, she started when the alien emerged again from his office. He didn’t appear to be carrying anything except for a small thin rectangle. Moon tried to steady her breathing as he approached.

He stopped a metre away and thrust a small card at her.

“He has a service he uses sometimes. Leave a message. If he’s interested, he’ll be in touch.”

Moon reached for the little slip with her left hand, her right readjusting again its slippery grip on a weapon that suddenly felt as if it weighed as much as a small sun.

She didn’t say “thank you”. Nobody on Marentim said such words. She continued watching the man, willing him to disappear back down the corridor and into his office. Eventually he got the message and, after a long stare, walked away.