Ash Ock

  Ash Ock

  Book Two Of The Paratwa Saga

  Christopher Hinz

  For Kate, Ann, Bill, Gerry,

  Barb, Elaine, Sue

  for their support

  for their friendship

  The Sphere of the Royal Caste

  Prologue

  Ghandi stood with the captain on the flight deck, their hands gripping the sway bars, their bodies rocking back and forth. Outside the shuttle, the fierce Colorado winds screamed across the thick hull, blasting wads of snow against the narrow band of windows, buffeting the craft as if it were a freefall toy in the hands of a child. The pilot, strapped tightly in his acceleration chair in front of them, kept his eyes riveted to the instruments. Sight navigation was useless in such a storm.

  “Well?” demanded the captain.

  The pilot, maintaining his vigil on the control board that half encircled him, shook his head. “Gone again, Captain. It’s a weak signal . . .”

  “I don’t care what kind of signal it is,” growled the captain. “I’m not spending the whole day flying through this crap. If you can’t lock on in sixty seconds, get us the hell out of here.”

  A particularly violent updraft banked the craft thirty degrees. Ghandi lost his balance. He lunged sideways, mashed his face into the captain’s shoulder, inhaled the stench of a freshly spirited odorant bag. The smell alone almost knocked him back in the opposite direction.

  The captain glared. “If you can’t stand a bit of turbulence, Ghandi, then strap yourself in!”

  Ghandi exhaled slowly, turning away to hide his anger. This captain had a nasty temper, but corresponding displays from his crew were not tolerated. Even a mild grimace from Ghandi could gyrate the captain into a full-blown tantrum.

  And the man had a smell that would frighten children.

  Ghandi wore an odorant bag, too; most pirates kept a hybrid of foul scents looped around their belts—a symbol of their particular clan, a badge of the true Costeau. Still, Ghandi removed his odorant bag once in a while . . .

  “It’s back!” yelled the pilot. “And I’ve got a fix.”

  The captain grunted.

  “Six or seven miles to the southwest,” said the pilot, “right where Denver squeezes itself against the mountains.”

  “One of our ships?” asked the captain.

  “No.”

  “E-Tech?”

  The pilot hesitated. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen a beacon like this before. A sporadically pulsed cardioid pattern. Extremely low power. I doubt whether anyone beyond a twenty-mile radius could even pick it up. I’m sure it’s a distress signal, but whether or not it’s E-Tech, I couldn’t say.”

  “What could you say?” grilled the captain.

  The pilot shrugged.

  The captain’s eyes drifted shut, a retreat into deep thoughts. Ghandi knew what those thoughts were.

  If it’s an E-Tech ship, it could be a trap. Sucker us down to the surface with a phony distress signal, then arrest us for illegal trespass. We’re on a dirty flight—unlisted with E-Tech’s orbital control—and we’re in restricted airspace to boot. Lately, the bastards were getting tougher—penalties for such intrusions were becoming harsher. Whatever moral qualms E-Tech had once boasted regarding entrapment had vanished years ago. Pirate captains, caught on the surface without permission, were being levied heavy fines. Some Costeaus had even been stripped of their vessels.

  Good reasons for not responding to distress calls.

  But maybe this ship isn’t E-Tech. Maybe it’s colony-bred treasure hunters, just as dirty down here as we are. Maybe they had engine failure and can’t lift off.

  An E-Tech outpost existed in Texas, seven hundred miles to the southeast. But if the captain of this shuttle was on a dirty flight, probably he would not risk contacting that base, at least not until things got desperate. A short-range, low-powered distress beacon offered a fair shot of reaching one of the numerous Costeau flights that constantly scavenged the planet. And pirates, whether down here legally or otherwise, provided the best chance for getting rescued and staying out of trouble with the colonial authorities. Boost the power of your signal—shout help over a ten-state area—and E-Tech Security patrols would be crawling all over you within the hour.

  The captain opened his eyes. “I think it’s a dirty flight.”

  The pilot nodded. “Engine problems, maybe.”

  The captain’s mouth twisted into the vaguest hint of a smile. “They might need our help.”

  In the proper circumstances, help could be a very expensive commodity.

  “Let’s take her down.”

  Ghandi smiled, too. This asshole captain did have his good points.

  * * *

  “What do you make of it?” asked the pilot.

  “Hell if I know,” muttered one of the others.

  The five of them stood silently, in full spacesuits, in twenty inches of snow, on the western edge of Denver, Colorado, where the flat sprawl of the mile-high city began to undulate as it squeezed itself against the front range of the Rocky Mountains.

  Six and a half million people had lived here once, had breathed this air, had made this place into one of the great metropolitan centers of the twenty-first century. Now it was dead, no different from the other Earth cities, lifeless for almost a quarter of a millennium, the air still saturated with organic poisons, practically unbreathable. Just another icon of planet Earth: another of humanity’s junkyards, decimated by the nuclear-biological Apocalypse of 2099, two hundred and thirty-nine years ago.

  The storm had subsided a bit, or else the mass of skyscrapers rising a few miles behind them somehow limited wind intensity at ground level. Even so, a fair amount of fresh snow swirled through the air, blowing down from the western peaks. Ghandi touched a sensor on his control belt, notched his faceplate thermal wiper into a faster mode.

  In front of them, an eight-lane highway—probably once a major interstate thoroughfare—bisected this particular development, truncating the deserted streets and dividing the staggered rows of eight- and ten-story condos into two separate arenas. Ghandi thought it likely that the highway had also served as a governmental dividing line; an official boundary permitting the once-extravagant condo dwellers to consider themselves as denizens of discrete subcommunities. The idea fit well with what he knew of pre-Apocalyptic history.

  On the far side of the highway, about a hundred yards to the north, in a vacant lot beside a car refueling station, rested the unfamiliar shuttle. The interior lights were lit and the main airlock stairway was down. There was no sign of life.

  Their own shuttle squatted behind them, in the center of an exit ramp—one hundred and fifty feet of white metal and plastic, a pair of stubby wings angling upward, the blackened heat shields testifying to frequent atmospheric incursions. Beneath the craft, the ice and snow had been melted away by the intense heat from their vertical landing jets; plumes of gray smoke still drifted from the sextet of exhaust tubes. Cracked yellow paving—the exit ramp’s original surface—lay exposed, extending outward in a twenty-foot arc from the vessel.

  “Should we leave a guard behind?” asked the pilot.

  “You scared?” the captain retorted.

  Ghandi said nothing. The asshole should leave someone behind, just in case they ran into problems. No backup . . . that was begging for trouble.

  The other shuttle was roughly the same size and shape as their own. There were no large markings visible on the stubby body, but that was not unusual. Anyone on a dirty flight ran the risk of being visually sighted by an E-Tech ground unit. Without ID markings, there was no way for E-Tech to positively identify the craft and bring official charges against the crew upon their return to the Colonies.

  The captain turned to one of the o
ther pirates. The man wore a shoebox-sized device strapped to the front of his spacesuit: a rhythm detector—standard hunt-and-search gear for ground expeditions.

  “Picking up anything?”

  The crewman checked the digital readout and shook his head.

  “Nothing, Captain. No movement within three hundred yards. Either they’re out of the neighborhood or they’re still inside the shuttle.”

  Not necessarily, thought Ghandi. They could be shielded. It was not extraordinarily difficult to block the scanning waves of a rhythm detector; some of the surrounding condos—like the shuttle itself—might have walls thick enough to inhibit the device’s tracking sensors. And AV scramblers would also foul a rhythm detector, though Ghandi acknowledged the remoteness of that possibility. AV scramblers were still on E-Tech’s restricted technology list and even black market models cost a fortune, providing you could find one.

  He said nothing, however, knowing it would be a wasted effort to broach any of his concerns. This was only Ghandi’s third flight with this captain and crew, but already their weaknesses were obvious. They were too clan-confident, relying on their reputations as Costeaus, rather than applying sound logic and judgment to potentially dangerous situations. Macho idiots usually died young. Ghandi thought it miraculous that this crew—and the captain in particular—had survived for so long.

  The five of them stepped carefully over a section of crushed guardrail and trudged across the snow-covered highway, toward the shuttle.

  As they approached, Ghandi noted that the craft had a thick covering of fresh snow all around it. And the stairway was virgin-white—no footprints. Beneath the vessel, two- and three-foot icicles hung from the end cones of the vertical landing jets. Whoever these people were, they had been here for a while—at least several days. Or longer.

  “Maybe they’re dead,” remarked the pilot.

  Ghandi hoped so. That was certainly the best possible scenario. A dead crew meant that the shuttle was theirs to plunder. If the crew was still alive . . . well, that opened up several options.

  The standard arrangement for helping a downed crew—other than fellow pirates—called for an assist fee. In advance. But if the captain saw evidence that this crew had plundered valuable antiques or other treasures from the surface, then a more lucrative partnership arrangement might be demanded. And whatever was demanded would be granted. This captain might lack qualities as a tactician but he was a Costeau.

  Of course, those possibilities assumed that this shuttle crew was willing to bargain. But maybe this bunch would not want to cut any deals.

  Ghandi dropped a palm to his belt and fingered the butt of his thruster. All five of them wore the powerful handguns strapped to their belts. And the pilot carried a deadlier version of the weapon—a modified, and highly illegal, thruster rifle, with enough pulsed energy in its blast to blow a hole through an unshielded spacesuit at close range.

  Ghandi hoped things would not degenerate into violence. He had killed before—a clan fight in his youth, a sandram cracked against the head of an opponent with too much force. Watching the other boy crumple into death had not been an entirely unpleasant experience. But wiping out a shuttle crew down here on the surface could lead to serious consequences. Up in the Colonies, E-Tech might start asking questions.

  And these days, E-Tech was not the only potential source of trouble. It was entirely possible that other Costeaus would bring them grief.

  There was a growing movement over the past few decades, throughout the Colonies, to mainstream the Costeau population; an effort with unofficial origins thirty-one years ago, the year of Ghandi’s birth. In that year—2307—a rival clan, the Alexanders, had helped rid the Colonies of two Paratwa: Codrus, the Ash Ock mastermind, and his servant, the liege-killer. Since that time, more and more pirate clans had begun to cooperate openly with E-Tech and the Irryan Council. However traitorous and despicable Ghandi might perceive such collaboration, he could not deny the overall effects. Being hunted for murder by E-Tech would be a serious problem. But being hunted by other Costeaus . . . well, that was something else entirely.

  They were less than twenty feet away from the shuttle now, and Ghandi suddenly realized that there were no markings visible on the faded paint, not even the standard tiny warning emblems, clustered around the heat shields, engines, and airlocks. Someone had taken the time to blot out even the slightest hint of an insignia. That was overkill—long-range E-Tech video tracking gear was not that good. Small markings would surely escape detection.

  The lack of markings made Ghandi nervous. He was about to chance the captain’s wrath by mentioning the anomaly when a female voice cut into their suit intercom circuit.

  “Thank you for coming.”

  The voice was young and husky, but decidedly feminine.

  “I’ve had a major engine shutdown,” the voice continued. “The main cooling system, I think.”

  They froze as a spacesuited figure strode out onto the airlock ramp. The pilot raised his thruster rifle.

  The woman stared down at them, her face almost completely hidden by the helmet visor. Ghandi could just make out pale skin and a mass of curly blonde hair. She gave them a tentative smile.

  “I need a ride and . . . I’ll be glad to pay for it.”

  The captain moved to the bottom of the stairway. “Where’s your crew?”

  “I have no crew.”

  The pilot kept his rifle trained on her.

  “This is my own shuttle,” she explained slowly. “I’m down here on a research project. I’m preparing a paper on the psychosomatic ailments of pre-Apocalyptic condominium dwellers.”

  One of the pirates chuckled.

  The woman smiled. “You know how it is. Everyone’s fascinated by pre-Apocalyptic lifestyles.”

  The captain mounted the snow-covered stairway. The other crew members followed. Ghandi hesitated at the bottom of the ramp.

  Something’s wrong. A rich colonial princess, with her own shuttle, down here on the surface, all by her lonesome self. That didn’t fit. She’s obviously been here for days. She says she’s doing research. Fine. But why mess around with a short-range distress beacon when you’re facing a major engine failure? Why not simply blast a HELP signal across the spectrum?

  “You must be having some serious power problems,” Ghandi challenged. “Your beacon was very weak. Of course, I see that you still have enough electricity to run internal lighting.”

  She hesitated. “I didn’t want to attract any . . . major attention. Come inside. I’ll explain.”

  Ghandi kept a hand on his thruster as he followed the others up the ramp.

  The six of them squeezed into the airlock, waited silently for pressurization. The inner seal opened and they followed her into the shuttle’s main corridor.

  Bright walls.

  That was the first thing Ghandi noticed. The corridor had been painted with an incredibly gaudy mixture of colors. Fiery red stripes crisscrossed a deep violet background and the whole mess was splotched with random patches of green and gold. The arrangement lacked any sort of harmony. The colors were so intense that at spots they seemed to be pulsing.

  She led them down the long corridor and through an open air-seal, into the shuttle’s midcompartment, a large central space boasting a scattered arrangement of chairs, tables, and zero-G hammocks. Ghandi was relieved that the obnoxious color scheme had not been repeated in here. Soft, eye-pleasing pastels were highlighted by the dim light from a ceiling grid.

  The woman unsealed her helmet and laid it on a table. Carefully, she removed her spacesuit.

  Ghandi was thirty-one years old and had had his share of women: pirates, smugglers’ wives, barely pubescent colonial girls tantalized with the idea of romping with Costeaus. Once, he had blown almost his entire profit from a two-week artifact hunt on one extended visit to a silky palace in Velvet-on-the-Green. Still, for the most part, he prided himself on a modicum of self-control.

  When the woman stepped out of
her spacesuit, Ghandi got an erection.

  There was nothing blatantly erotic about her, and it had not been that long since he had last been with a woman. Yet there was no denying her effect on him.

  Her clothing was very plain; a faded blue vest tucked into loose-fitting white trousers. Bare arms displayed well-defined biceps. The skin bore a light tan. All five foot five of her looked to be in prime physical condition. She could not have been a day over twenty-five.

  “Up your lookers,” she chided gently.

  Ghandi, realizing he had been staring at her breasts, elevated his attention to her face.

  She smiled. “Like what you see?”

  The voice was soft, sexy, straining at invisible leashes. The face: a perfect oval framed by that mass of golden curls, pale cheeks rouged with tiny dimples, aquamarine eyes, dancing . . . drawing him closer, into a throbbing sea, gentle waves, caressing . . .

  His throat went dry. Without turning away from her face, he toggled a sequence on his control belt, felt the suit’s thin water hose extend itself from the underside of his helmet, sensors probing for his mouth.

  His lips closed on the hose’s nipple and he suckled, drawing a tiny stream through his mouth, across his tongue, letting it flow to the top of his throat, not swallowing, but allowing the cold liquid to trickle effortlessly down. He imagined that the nipple was her breast.

  “Look around you,” he heard her say. “Do any of you like what you see?”

  The captain answered. “Yes. We like what we see.”

  Ghandi tore his eyes away from her and stared at the delicate pastel walls of the midcompartment. But immediately he began to get a headache.

  “Sit down,” she instructed Ghandi. “You look ill.”

  With his tongue, he pushed the water hose away from his mouth. “My head hurts.”

  She smiled and laid her palm on his shoulder. Even through the thick padding of his suit, her touch felt electric. His pulse quickened.