CHAPTER 8
Jaisalmer District, New Eden
ANNOS MARTIS 238. 4. 7. 09:43
Sighing, I follow them to the second floor. Inside, Ares’s pub is a sauna of body odor, pipe smoke, and the ubiquitous red dust. There’s a U-shaped bar in the middle of the room, a half ton of polished steel and iron that was once the wing manifold of a Manchester, a mining rig that stands three stories high and can process a ton of ore in a minute. All of the Manchesters were decommissioned once Mars reached Phase Blue. Their parts show up in all sorts of interesting places. Like a smoky pub in the armpit of Jaisalmer District.
Seated around the bar is a ragtag collection of mercenaries. Most of them are freelance Regulators, like Jenkins and Fuse, who are sitting in the back corner. Their table is a steel cable roll turned on its side.
Vienne leans against the back wall, a metal cup in hand. Her focus, though, is on the room. Always vigilant. I catch her eye. Then move to the opposite end of the bar, near where the miners are talking to a decommissioned Regulator turned freelancer named Ockham. He looks to be an age-twenty-five, maybe older, with graying temples, a balding pate, and a diagonal pink scar that runs across his nose and empty left eye socket.
“You want me to do what?” Ockham roars with laughter. “For how much? You miners, I never knew you derelicts had such a sense of humor. Always got your heads stuck in the ground. Thought of you as a dour lot, I did. But no, you say with a straight face that you want a Regulator to travel a thousand kilometers south to protect a worked-out mine. Ha!”
He pounds one of the men on the back. The miner’s knees bend, and he absorbs the blow by falling to the floor. No wonder the miners need help, if this is the best they have to offer.
“We’re serious,” the man says, getting up from the floor. “Sorry you’ve decided not to be.”
Ockham shakes a fist. “You’ve got a lot of nerve waltzing into a pub and insulting your betters.”
Idiots. Absolute piru viek??n idiots. I can see the next steps in this dance: The girl miner insults the soldier. Said soldier chooses one piece of his arsenal and kills all three of them. No tribunal will convict him. He’s a Regulator, and they’re just miners.
“Damn,” I curse under my breath. “Mimi, any advice?” But there’s no answer—she’s in sleep mode. Then, because I can’t help myself, I do something predictable. Yet stupid. Predictably stupid. “Ockham! You old son of a moon dog! Let me buy you a drink! No, two!”
Elbowing my way to the bar, I wedge myself between the girl and Ockham. As I ask the owner to set this fine soldier up for another round, I touch the side of my nose to let Vienne know that trouble’s coming. She nods, then smiles.
“There’s a fair suck of the salve!” the miner girl complains at me for butting in. “Aren’t you the rude one?”
I turn my back on her and raise a glass in salute to Ockham. “To the Corporation!”
Ockham looks befuddled for a second, but a free drink gets his attention. “To the Command!” He clicks my glass. “Smooth, that was. How about another?”
“Another!” I shout.
“Another!” he echoes.
Then Vienne is beside me. “Get the miners out of the pub,” I whisper to her. “I’ll meet them outside.”
“Yes, chief.” She crooks a finger, signaling the miners to follow her. “Not a word. Let’s go.”
But the girl shakes her head petulantly, refusing to leave, and the two men can’t figure out which one to listen to. So they do nothing. What a bunch of stubborn fossickers. They’ll ruin everything.
The next round of drinks comes up. I raise a glass. “Sláinte!”
“Sláinte!” Ockham’s remaining eye blinks twice. “Do I know you, boy?”
“We’ve met a few times. Here, you know. And there. Mostly there. Some heres. A couple of theres. But mostly—mostly heres?”
Ockham squints. Leans closer. Takes a long look at the hand wrapped around my glass, concentrating on my pinkie finger. Then his eyes widen. “Dalit!” He slams the full glass on the bar. “Never thought I’d take a drink with the likes of you.”
“Me neither, Ockham.” I down my aqua pura and pay the tab. “But times are hard, and you do what you have to.”
“You pimple-faced brat.” Ockham slaps a thick, calloused hand on mine. “Don’t think you’re walking that easy.”
I slip my hand from under his. Grab his thumb and twist it. He grunts. His face reddens.
“Actually, Ockham,” I say with a pretend grin. “It’s going to be real easy. Or messy. Take your pick.”
Fuse stands. “If there’s to be a ruckus, chief, me and my cobber here have got your back. Innit right, Jenks?”
“Huh?” Jenkins scratches his head. “What’s right?”
“That you and me have got the chief’s back.” He winks at Vienne. “Just say yes, Jenks.”
“Yes, Jenks.”
“There you have it, chief.”
Vienne rolls her eyes. Ignores them and puts a hand on the butt of her armalite.
Ockham acknowledges her with a wink of his missing eye. “There was a day,” he says, trying to ignore the death grip I have on his thumb, “when you all’d be nothing but a pool of piddle under my boot.” He cracks his neck and works his shoulders. “Now, you boys still would be. But you, young lady, you move like you know which end of the armalite to shoot, which is more than I can say for the big man there.”
“Huh?” Jenkins says. He peers into the barrel of his gun. “It shoots from this end. Right? Oy, Fuse. Right?”
“You made my point, big man.” Ockham laughs. With his free hand, he downs another drink. Slams it on the bar, shattering the glass. Moving like a blur, he presses the jagged edge against my jugular. “Here’s a lesson for you, boy. A smart Regulator doesn’t have to beat a whole davos to win a fight.”
Vienne draws. Drops to one knee. Firing position. “Say the word, chief.”
Damned miners. Right now, I’m wishing I hadn’t put Mimi into sleep mode.
“Mimi, wake mode, please.”
Thirty seconds. That’s all it takes to wake her. But thirty seconds is about twenty too many.
“You’re wondering,” Ockham says, “if I’ll do it. That’s not the question you ought to be asking. What I do doesn’t matter, young chief. It’s what you do that counts.”
“Actually,” I say, “I’m wondering what.”
“What what?”
“What to do with your thumb when I break it off.”
I give the thumb a twist as I yank his hand off the counter. He swings the glass again. I duck and sweep his legs. Then jump back and watch him hit the deck.
He’s not down long. With a quick kip up, he’s back on his feet, showing great flexibility for an oldie. I drop into a defensive stance, ready.
Instead, Ockham pops his neck. Rolls his shoulders. Drops the broken glass on the counter. “Nice move, boy. Next time it won’t be so easy. I owe you one.” He pats me on the cheek. Walks past the others, laughing loudly. “Drink up, piddlers.”
Without looking back, he hits the door.
Good riddance.
“You’re bleeding,” Vienne says.
I touch my neck. Find a red stain on my fingertips. Der schei?kerl! The old fossicker cut me.
“Look what you’ve gone and done.” The miner girl gets chummy with my personal space. “Chased off the only Regulator who’d talk to us. How’re you going to make amends?”
“Amends?” Vienne spins the girl around and sticks a gun barrel up her nose. “That little brain of yours needs more oxygen. How about I open an airhole?”
“You’d not dare!” the girl gasps.
“Yes, she would,” I say, and start walking toward the back of the pub. “Vienne, stand down and follow me.”
“Yes, chief.”
“You, miners. Let’s talk.” Seconds pass. The miners don’t move. “Last chance, people.”
The two old men look to the girl. She strikes a pose, hands on hips, trying to sashay in a pair of grungy overalls. She grabs the rest of my drink and downs it.
“Blech!” She wipes her mouth her sleeve. “What is that rot?”
“Water,” I say. “The real stuff. Coming or not?”
She stamps the floor. “Yes, damn it!”
The three of them file past me. I rub my forehead with the heel of my hand, trying to block the radioactive glare Vienne’s giving me.
“Good morning, cowboy,” Mimi says, and makes a sound like a yawn as I close the door behind us. “What did I miss?”