CHAPTER 9
Jaisalmer District, New Eden
ANNOS MARTIS 238. 4. 7. 10:11
The miner girl slaps her coin on the table. “That’s our price. One hundred coin,” she says. “We need a Regulator to show us how to fight the Dr?u. We’ll want you as soon as you can book passage to Hell’s Cross.”
I pull up a chair. Lean back and put my boots on the table. “You’re getting ahead of yourself here. I never agreed to take the job. I’m just trying to save your stubborn hides from getting flayed. This is New Eden, not the mines. You can’t go about insulting people of rank.”
The girl puts hands on hips. She blows a sprig of hair from her face, frustrated. “Didn’t know the oldie had got the full boot on.”
“She means,” one of the other miners cuts in, “we meant no offense. We ain’t used to the way of surfies.”
“I know what she meant,” I say.
The girl pouts. Then she shifts her weight to favor her good leg. I can see why. Bloodstains on her coveralls. She’s been wounded.
“Damn the surfies,” the other man says. “They don’t care a whit about miners. Why should miners care about them?”
Miners are the poorest of the poor. It wasn’t always that way. Once upon a time, the mines were invaluable. On Earth, they learned how to heat up—and destroy—a planet with pollution. On Mars, our grandparents’ grandparents put those lessons into effect, purposely creating a greenhouse effect that sped up terraforming by decades. As the colonies grew, Fisher Four, which rested under a perpetual cloud of dust, was the most crucial part of the second phase of terraforming. But to the residents of the outpost, Fisher Four was Hell, even before it became obsolete, because their lives were short and painful. If the Manchester machines or a chance encounter with a Big Daddy didn’t kill them, rust lung disease would.
“You’ve got a point there,” I say. “Except you happened to pick a surfie who was armed.”
“You’re headed down a bad road, cowboy,” Mimi warns me.
“It’s not like we haven’t been there before.” I sit up. Take my boots off the table. “Tell us why you good miners have gone looking for Regulators.”
The girl flashes a satisfied smile. “Like I said. To teach us how to fight the Dr?u so we can defend ourselves next time.”
Next time? “The Dr?u attacked you before?”
They all bow. If the Dr?u really did do half of what rumor says, it’s no wonder the miners are looking for help. I catch Vienne’s eye. She shakes her head. We’re thinking the same thing—as fighters, the miners aren’t up to snuff.
“The mines aren’t worth anything,” I say. “Why would the Dr?u be sniffing around?”
“They demanded,” she answers, “six children. You’ve heard of the Dr?u. You know what they do with children.”
Eat them, I say to myself, because it’s too heinous to say out loud. The exploits of the Dr?u may be exaggerated, but there’s one thing that’s true: They are cannibals.
Vienne catches my eye this time. As far as the Tenets are concerned, I have no choice but to accept. When a lesser people are in mortal danger, a Regulator is honor bound to help them. We must serve with one eye, one hand, one heart. If dalit don’t uphold the oath, what good are we?
“We’ll take the job,” I say, looking at Vienne, who smiles. “But you’re going to need more than a two-Regulator crew to fight the Dr?u.”
“Fight?” the girl says. “We said nothing about fighting. Training is what—”
“Will get you killed. Every last chùsheng one of you. No, what you need is a whole davos of well-trained Regulators to defend you.”
“How many Regulators in a davos?”
“Ten,” Vienne says.
The first man blanches. “Ten?”
“At full strength,” I say. “We can make do with eight. Maybe fewer, if they’re good.”
The girl picks up the coin from the table. Shoves it into my hands. “Hire all you want. If you can get them for a hundred coin.”
“A davos of Regulators can’t work for so little,” I say.
“That’s all we’ve got,” the girl says.
Of course it is. Trouble always finds me, and it’s always dirt-poor. I sigh. “It’s a contract.” Then we shake hands to seal the deal. “I’m Durango. That’s Vienne, my second.”
“My name is áine Phelan,” she says, holding onto my hand a few seconds longer than she should. “He’s Spiner, and the other one’s Jurm.”
“When will you be leaving for Fisher Four?” Spiner adds, “We need to catch the next TransPort.”
“Tomorrow morning,” I say. “At the earliest. I’ve some personal business, and it’ll take time for us to round up more Regulators.” Then I suggest they catch their TransPort as scheduled. Vienne and I will follow with the recruits. If we can get any recruits.
“How’d we know that you’ll do as promised?” Jurm asks. “A pretty boy like you’d be prone to fickleness.”
“Care to repeat that?” Vienne snarls.
Jurm does just that. “A pretty boy—”
“Jurm,” Spiner says. “No need to be so ornery.”
“Don’t blame me,” Jurm grumbles. “She the one who asked.”
áine offers her hand to me. “See you soon, chief. Spiner, Jurm, let’s go.”
As the miners leave the room, taking a wide berth around Vienne, áine hands me a slim metal case.
“Here’s directions to Outpost Fisher Four,” she says. “And half the coin. You get paid the rest when the job’s done.”
“What, exactly, does done mean?” I ask.
“It means either that the Dr?u pledge to leave us be or that the Dr?u are all dead.”
I shake my head. “The likelihood of either of those things happening is minuscule.”
“Then,” áine says, her voice breathy, “minuscule is what you’ve got to look forward to for payment. Chief, pleasure doing business with you.”
When they’ve gone and the door is shut, I ask Vienne, “What do you think?”
“Clumsy.”
“She’s been wounded.”
“I meant her attempts to flirt with you.”
My ears start to burn. “Oh. Yeah. Well. Except when I asked what do you think, I meant, what kind of davos do you think we can get together?”
“No Regulator worth a lick is going to work a hundred-coin job.”
“We are,” I say.
“We’re different.”
By different, she means better. “Well,” I say. “If worse comes to worse, I already have a couple of Regulators in mind.”
She glares at me. “I said, good Regulators.”
“One’s a carking good demolitionist, and the other one’s…well, he must be good for something.”
“No, not them, chief. Please.”
I flash a cheesy grin. “Come on, Vienne. It’ll be fun.”
“You and I,” she says, hands on hips, “have completely different definitions of fun.”