13: Lucky Break

Four thousand, seven hundred and sixty.  I’d spent two hundred and forty plat within three hours of being on Dessalines.  Granted, most of that was a hotel room for the night, but it still worried me.  I had a lot of things to do fairly urgently, and five thou isn’t a whole lot of money these days, not with a war raging in the background.  I put about three hundred back in my cheap wallet and the rest in my boots, then went to the mini-bar.  I found a little vial of Cranky Mule bourbon, but thought better of it.  I’d already had a beer, and I was about an hour away from a date at Club K: I’d have plenty to drink soon enough.  Scratching my chin and loving not having a beard any more, I walked out of my room.  Sally was at the front desk with Veraa, who winked as I left and I flashed her a smile.  She made a point of eyeing the tattoos on my arms.  Most girls I’d dated thought they were horrible, no matter how much I argued.

At a department store, I bought a sandy-coloured pullover and a cheap mobile link.  I chose a prepaid chip, just something cheap and unregistered, loading fifty plat onto it.  The little start-up card with the chip told me my new address number, so I slipped it into my wallet: I couldn’t be bothered learning the sixteen numbers and letters now.  Next stop was a Disposals store, at which I bought a tough, simple backpack and a new knife with a folding blade.  The Gorgon owner gave me twenty plat off the knife because I told him I was a Marine.  My watch told me I had twenty minutes before I was to meet Veraa at Club K.  I had barely stepped out of the lift on the twenty-fifth floor when a large Kthuu female approached me.

“Hah, fancy seeing you here,” said the wasp-like insectoid.  I always wondered why Kthuu never seem to struggle with human speech, despite their native language being a series of clicks, buzzes and hums.

I did a double take.  “Sorry?”

“Jack Slate?  It’s me, Trish.”

Jack Slate was my brother’s alias.  One of them, anyway.  Couldn’t be a coincidence.  “Uh, I’m not Jack.”

“You look just like him.  Minus the beard, of course.”

Bingo.  “No, no, I’m his brother.  Sam.  You’ve seen him around?”

Trish nodded her bug-eyed head.  “Well, couple of months ago.  Found him on Earth II, living in a bunker.  Thought I was gonna eat him,” she laughed.  “I’m a vegetarian.  Anyway, I gave him a lift to here, funnily enough.  Then I saw him on Vezzp about a week later, but only at a distance.  I’m good with faces like that.”

“He got from here to your planet in a week?  But you didn’t take him there?”

“Not me.  Why, you looking for him?”

“Sure am.”

“Oh.  He said he had a brother, but he didn’t know whether you were still alive or not.  Sorry, I don’t mean to be—“

I waved my hands irritably.  “No, no, don’t worry about that.  So, you last saw him on Vezzp.  Was he okay?”

Trish shrugged her first pair of legs.  “Seemed okay, but he was acting really weird.  Suspicious.  Sneaking around.  Ooh, wait, I remember.  I met him on Ispania four days ago.  Gee, how could I forget that?”

I’m pretty sure my eyes popped out of my skull at that point.  “You what where? What was he doing there, of all places?”

Trish shrugged again.  “Dunno, but he looked like he was really distracted, and a little scared.  Said he was in some trouble.  Oh yeah, and he asked me if I knew either ‘Sam Rockwell’, ‘Antonius Morris’, or ‘Sam Kelly’.  I said I didn’t, so he asked about ‘Diamond Kondrake’.  Hey, any of those names mean anything to you?”

“Yeah,” I said hoarsely, “some of them.  Hey, Trish, look, I gotta run.  I’m late for something.  Do you live here?”

“Nah, I’m just staying at the Cosy Arms for a few nights.”

“Oh, me too.  Which room are you in?”

“Twenty-two.”

“I tell you what, I’ll slip my address number under your door in a moment,” I said, already backing away toward the hotel.  “Send me a message, and I’ll get back to you tomorrow morning.  I need to figure a few things out about this whole mess first.  If he’s in trouble, I’m gonna need all the information you have.”

Trish nodded.  “Okay, no problem.  Hey, I really hope your brother is okay.”

“Thanks.  Me too.”