Back | Next
Contents

Chapter 2

icon


Jayce listened to the choppy water of the Zilarra River. From his perch atop the metal box around his fishing boat’s conn, every slap of the waves against the rusted metal hull spoke of the crew raising pods with wriggling slime eels or the myriad predators beneath the surface.

The thick fog, refracting pale yellow light from the dwarf star looming over most of the sky, sent semiopaque tendrils over the gunwales and around Jayce’s ankles. Jayce looked over one shoulder and cocked an ear up. There’d been a splash in the distance to the starboard side.

“In the boat, not in the water!” The ship captain lunged out of the conn and grabbed the bars of a trap and heaved back as slime eels wriggled through the tight netting. The fish secreted more and more slime through their scales as their stress levels rose out of the water. Enough were escaping through the bars and netting and squirting through crewmen’s hands and back into the river that the captain started counting off every quanta he lost with each escape.

“If the next two pods aren’t topped off, this run’ll be a loss.” The captain stomped on a wiggling eel’s head, then pinched a fin and tossed it into a holding tank in the middle of the ship.

The deck crew, two humans and a pair of insect-like Attorans, answered with a slew of profanity as a winch brought the empty cage onto a growing stack of empties that reeked of spoiled bait and dried slime.

The waters toward starboard swelled. A bit of foam spilled over the gunwale.

“Cap’n, there’s a bull head on us.” Jayce gripped a rope line that ran up toward the ship’s antenna array.

The crew froze.

The captain, a fat man with eel-skin suspenders holding up rubber waders, put his hands on his hips.

“It’s too late in the season for bull heads. They’ve all migrated east for the kelpso spawning—”

“Cap’n, it’s already circled us once. You drop the scrammer charge now or it’ll ram us. There!” Jayce pointed into the fog where a curve of shadow had just breached the water for a split second.

The captain dismissed the warning with a flick of his hand.

“Cap’n, if he’s wrong it’s just a scrammer,” one of the human fisherman said and pointed to a barrel fixed to the port side. “He’s right, and we best drop it right now, by Kaon!”

“I’ve been on these waters since I could walk. There’s no way a bull head is—”

Jayce didn’t wait for the captain to finish. He slipped a wrench out of his back pocket and cocked it behind his head. He focused on the latch holding the scrammer charge and hurled the tool at it. The head whacked the arming controls and the charge emitted ever quickening beeps and vibrated wildly against the metal bands holding it against the hull.

“Blast it!” The captain waddled over and released the charge into the water. “That’s coming right out of your cut, you little—”

The scrammer ignited and tiny crackles of electricity erupted up and around the hull, snapped against Jayce’s hands and face.

There was a fountain of bubbles a few yards from the ship and a predator the size of their vessel breached straight into the air. The thick frontal skull plate was marred by barnacles. Bent horns flashed rainbow colors as the scrammer’s pulse continued to wreak havoc with the massive animal. It reared away from the fishing vessel and slammed into the river. The resulting wave almost knocked Jayce from his perch and sent water crashing over the deck.

The crew stood slack-jawed as the bull head rolled over and over, then swam away with a strong flap of its tail.

“See?” One of the crew wiped water off his face and pointed at Jayce. “Told you ’e’s never wrong.”

“Yeah.” The captain shook slime off his boots. “Yeah, there’s still three more lines to collect. You!” He pointed a thick finger at Jayce. “Who do you think you are, damaging my gear without my permission?”

“Sorry, Cap’n.” Jayce gave him a quick bow. “It was that or swim home.”

The captain grumbled and went back into the conn.

“Just keep doing what I pay you to do.” He slammed the door behind him.

“Aye-aye.” Jayce smiled as the boat rumbled forward.


Jayce carried a basket full of slithering eels down the gangplank and hefted it onto a scale. He swiped a sleeve across his forehead and turned his face up from the smell of the expiring catch. Latticeworks of old metal rose up around the dock, the upper levels lost in the fog. The lash up on this part of Hemenway was a conglomerate of ships and rafts lashed together, anchored to the bare rock of a short line of mountain peaks jutting up from the river. People hurried from one false island to another on suspension bridges; spun plastic ropes groaned and stretched as the boats drifted back and forth.

A rusty droid flashed the weight of the eels on its faceplate and the ship captain scratched a pencil to a notepad.

“Holds clear!” a fisherman shouted from the boat.

“Right, slime eels fresh as fresh can be.” The captain held up his notepad and wagged it next to his face where a heavyset man in a long raincoat could see it.

“Buyer’s agreement holds. Too bad you didn’t deliver a few hours ago, would’ve got a better price.” The man swiped his fingertips over the top of one ear and a pair of hulking guards armed with clubs stepped out of a cold storage boat and hopped up onto the pier.

“What’s with the muscle if our buyer’s agreement holds?” The captain glanced at his crew, none of whom seemed eager to get into a scrap with the bruisers. The captain pointed at an armband with a red-and-green binary star sewn into it on the buyer’s arm. “Syndicate pays what’s due.”

“And the Syndicate gets what’s our due.” The buyer smiled. “Purchase agreement was for ninety-four quanta per bushel of eels when you signed your contract. But it didn’t take effect until you delivered. Market conditions changed while you were out, plenty of other boats bringing in eel for the Farnham when she arrives. Oversupply. Price falls. That’s the market. You get eighty-seven per bushel.”

One of the guards slapped the head of a metal club against his palm.

“You want to take your catch elsewhere?” the buyer asked.

“There ain’t no ‘elsewhere.’” The captain’s face went flush with anger. He put his fists on his waist, then spat into the water. “Just pay me, then.”

“As you like.” The Syndicate buyer counted out a stack of bills and handed it over. He snapped his fingers twice and the robot rumbled away, dragging baskets full of eels into cold storage.

Jayce waited until the others had been paid before stepping up to the captain.

“Funny how contracts always seem to go the Syndicate’s way,” Jayce said.

“They brag about how they don’t levy taxes on us for them running the ports, but the Syndicate always gets their cut.” The captain counted out bills rapidly and passed a handful to Jayce, then pocketed the rest.

“Hey, where’s my spotter bonus?” Jayce riffled the bills with a flick of his finger.

“See, kid, that’s how it goes. It rolls downhill. I’ve got my margins to protect, same as the Syndicate,” the captain said.

“What? It’s not like I can be short on my rent because of this. And food costs what food costs. Why do you get to—”

“Then don’t fish with me next season.” The captain lumbered up the gangplank back to his ship. “You’re pretty lucky, kid, give the casino floats a shot.”

“Just because I’m lucky doesn’t mean I’m stupid!” Jayce shouted as the captain slammed the door to the conn. He did a quick count of the money in his hand, then stuffed it into a jacket pocket.

“Even with the spotter bonus, it still isn’t enough . . .” Jayce turned away and walked up the pier.

He passed over a wide suspension bridge to a market where aliens and humans sold goods from boats lashed to the side of an enormous raft holding small shops. The smell of cooking fish and dried-out river kelp overpowered the lingering scent of eel clinging to Jayce.

“Hello, love!” An elderly woman held up a roasted rodent on a skewer. “Jayce, trapped ’em fresh this morning. You must be hungry.”

Jayce stopped and sniffed at the rodent, then pointed to a bag of jelly cubes.

“Just some sustainers, please.” He dropped two coins into a slot in a metal box.

“Saving money, are we?” The old lady smacked toothless gums. “What for . . . ? Oh dear, are you leaving with the merchie? I heard passage costs so much more these days.”

Jayce forced a smile.

“And miss your skewers? Never. Just not in the mood for . . . too much right now.” Jayce took the bag of jelly cubes and tested their thickness with a quick squeeze.

“Now now, love, I’d never change my recipe.” She gave his hand a quick pat. “You best go pack. Merchies don’t come as often as they used to and Hemenway’s no place to grow old. Trust me on that one.”

“Blessings to you.” Jayce pocketed his meal cubes and went deeper into the warren of stalls. The neighborhood changed from shops to hovels. Children laughed and played in the narrow streets. Jayce stopped for a race between two white spotted frogs as one child announced the race and the two owners yelled encouragement to their pets.

He came to a ladder and climbed up several levels. The widow on the third tier closed her blinds well before Jayce was high enough to see through her windows. He got to the fifth level and looked down—the fog nearly obscured the slum below, but the noises and smells still reached him.

Jayce stepped off the ladder to a shack made of old hull plating and corrugated metal. The light over the door flickered on and off.

“Ah, not again.” Jayce went to the side of the shack and gripped a metal pole bolted to the floor. At the top was a hemisphere of black glass. Jayce gave the pole a shake and a shadow flickered over him. He kicked the pole at the base and the light from overhead changed from midday to a muted late evening brightness.

There was a rumble from the shack as solar power returned to his home. The light trap was temperamental and unreliable, but it kept things going when it worked.

Jayce unlocked his door and stepped into his shack. The narrow bed was unmade and both his other sets of clothes were scattered around the floor. He kicked a shirt up with his foot and smelled it. More mold had gotten in while the power was out. He tossed it into a water-filled pot and flicked on the broiler.

“And it’s laundry for dinner, again.” Jayce sat heavily on his bed and looked at the nutrient cube bag in his hands. He didn’t want to consider the weakly seasoned cubes a meal. That would mean admitting a degree of failure he wasn’t ready for.

He leaned forward and pried up a floor slat and took out a small metal box. He flicked it open and sighed at the meager pile of currency. Beneath the money was a picture of him and his parents when he was a baby. One more photo of his father in a military uniform was on the very bottom. His pay from the eel fishing went in, and he shut the box.

He froze. He felt something, a presence overhead. Jayce slipped a hand under a plastic-wrapped mattress and drew out a knife. There was a scrape against the roof.

“That better be you, Kay!” Jayce shouted.

There was a thump outside the door followed by a coded knock. Jayce kept the knife in hand and cracked the door open slightly. A frog-like alien with a wide green face and bulbous eyes with milky red irises was there. A hand with four overly long fingers waved at Jayce.

“How do you always know it’s me?” the alien asked.

“You’re the only one that ever stands on my roof. Did you break my light trap again? Because somehow I know the price to fix it’s gone sky high.” Jayce returned to sit on his bed.

Farnham’s coming in tomorrow.” Kay stood stiffly in front of the door. His eyes twisted around in their sockets, taking in the whole of the small room without turning his head. “Prices are high on everything. Big buyers. Big prices. That’s what the brood mothers always tell us.”

“We’re hardly big down here.” Jayce rolled his eyes. “How’d it go fishing for berthel snipes? You get cheated at the docks?”

“You too, eh?” Kay croaked out a laugh. “The Farnham’s close enough in hyper to send off-world passage rates—you see ’em?”

“What? When?” Jayce flung open his nightstand and took out a battered data slate. He slapped it several times and the screen flickered on.

“Two thousand quanta for steerage class.” Kay’s wide purple tongue licked one if his own eyes. “Which is way too much if you ask me.”

“Two . . . thousand?” Jayce pinched the screen, then tossed it back into the nightstand.

“You don’t have that much,” the alien croaked.

“I’m not telling you how much I have, Kay. You have the biggest mouth I’ve ever seen—figuratively and literally. You talk about my wad and then here comes some fee from the Syndicate I’ve never heard from that I have to pay if I like both my thumbs.” Jayce rested his chin on his knuckles. “That’s almost four hundred more than the last time a merchie came through the system . . .”

“I heard one of the Syndicate underbosses asking about you in the market.” Kay scratched his feet against the floor. “Asking where your stack is. That sort of thing.”

“Which boss?” Jayce rubbed a bruise from his last Scale fight.

“Same one that sprang for your Cerebro. Maybe it wasn’t as free as he said it was.” Kay’s tongue snapped out and snagged a half-open tin of small fish. His fingers squeezed and popped the thin metal.

“He wants me in his stable of fighters.” Jayce’s shoulders fell. “Farm me out to different floats for fixed fights. I’ll get a cut barely bigger than what I would’ve earned in a legit fight. Bookies will get wise and then that’s the end of my fighting career. I’ll be an associate or a prospect by then and end up as his muscle to collect on bets or protection money . . . Damn it.”

“Syndicate runs the planet, Jayce. What’s wrong with being on the bosses’ side?”

“I’m not a thug, Kay! They’ve rigged everything to turn us into little more than slaves and you want me to be one of them? They’re barely better than the Tyrant. My dad was taken away and now the same sort of authority’s sniffing around to draft me too.”

“What’s the Syndicate going to do if you say no?” Kay hopped a few inches off the floor.

“What happens to anyone that puts up a fight? I’ll get blacklisted from working fishing boats at least, broken bones . . . Then I’ll be one of those wretches on the barnacle decks eating trash. That’s why I’ve got to get out of here, Kay. Maybe I can get a loan from—”

“No one’s loaning money to anyone when there’s a merchie in-system.” Kay popped the thin metal on the tin again.

“Yeah, go ahead, its gone bad anyway,” Jayce went to his window and looked out over the haze pervading through the floating town.

“You leave town with a pocketful of debt and it’s the lender’s problem. Can’t collect if you’re off-world and never coming back.” Kay tossed a small fish into his mouth and swallowed it whole. “You don’t have enough for a ticket out of here. It’ll cost even more the next time. Makes you wonder what that new government in the Core is doing. Syndicate fees are tax. Government prints money to pay off its problems and that inflation’s a tax. Scrubs like us need a big score to get anywhere in life . . . But I’ve got some good news. Might sound like bad news, but it’s good for you. And me.”

The alien tensed up.

Jayce gave him a sidelong glance.

“I’m listening,” he said.

“It’s not a stupid idea. It’s a riskier one. Down on the dock’s another Syndicate boss. New guy I’ve never seen before, but he’s got the right colors on so the locals aren’t hassling him. He’s on the docks with a . . .” He glanced around the room and whispered, “A mystic.”

Jayce let out a slow sigh.

“No, no! Hear me out. This boss is asking around for a river rat to guide them somewhere. Won’t say where but the pay’s good. Real good. You’re the best river rat I know . . . and I owe you some favors,” Kay said quickly. “They’ve got a clipper at the docks and they’re hiring hands right now.”

“Wait, our float boss doesn’t let mystics touch his docks. He hates all that mumbo jumbo,” Jayce said.

“New guy’s from three rivers over. Must have some serious weight in the Syndicate if he can ignore local-boss rules. My eighth cousin’s a prospect over there and he passed me this lead. Come on, Jayce, just hear the offer.” Kay inhaled the rest of the fish and left the slimy tin on a small dresser. He went to the door and rattled the knob.

“Don’t the Syndicate have rules about poaching in each other’s territory?” Jayce frowned.

“Maybe that’s why they’re paying extra. Gotta be hush-hush. You want to sit in this dump forever or you want to find out what the chance is?” Kay asked. “Look, if the pay’s not enough to get you a ticket on the merchie, I’ll loan you the rest. How’s that?”

“You just said that no one loans money when there’s a merchie in-system.” Jayce eyed the door, then looked over his meager living situation.

“Difference is I know you’re good for it. And let’s face it, Jayce: You’re too good for this dump,” Kay said.

“Hey. This dump is my dump and . . . Fine, let’s go. But I’m not agreeing to anything unless I want to.” Jayce lifted a rain slicker off a hook.


Back | Next
Framed