Chapter 25
Twenty Five
Kira
Letting herself and Graydon out of Jin’s room, Kira realized she’d never got a firm answer on the whereabouts of Roderick’s group. Figuring Jin was already busy enough with everything else she’d put on his plate, Kira decided on one last stop before she and Graydon took off.
“Just one moment,” Kira murmured.
Graydon nodded. “I need to touch base with my people anyway.”
He stepped away as Kira continued down the hallway, stopping at a door halfway down and knocking softly.
Several moments passed before it whooshed open.
Maksym stood silhouetted in the frame, his yawn big and the corners of his eyes crusted with sleep. He scratched his chest and leaned against the door frame. “Heir—what can I do for you?”
“Did Arly come back with you?”
“Yup.” Maksym moved aside to let her see the lump on the room’s second bed. “She’s sleeping right now.”
“Jin said Roderick and the other three haven’t returned yet.”
The sleepiness faded from Maksym’s expression. “You want me to track them down?”
“If you could.”
Kira couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. They should have been back by now. Either they’d met with an unfortunate encounter or they’d gone missing on purpose.
She needed to know which it was.
“I’ll grab my stuff.”
“Did you and Arly learn anything interesting over the last few hours?”
“Nothing of note. But then you weren’t really expecting much.”
The pointed look Maksym bent on her said he’d guessed the real reason Kira had sent him and Arly on their fact finding mission. To keep Arly out of her hair and away from the investigation.
“Sorry. You’re the only one I could trust.”
“More like I’m the only one you had any hope of sending away.”
Kira winced, feeling a little guilty.
“Don’t sweat it, heir. Like I told you at the beginning, I’m here to do your bidding.”
“That’s not anything like what you said.”
“I’m paraphrasing, of course.”
Kira fought amusement. “Sure, you are.”
“People here are scared,” Maksym said, turning serious. “They scurry like rodents and speak in hushed whispers.”
Kira absorbed that information with a pensive frown.
Maksym leaned a forearm against the doorframe. “Did you happen to notice the empty business fronts? I asked around. No one would say where their owners went. Or if they went voluntarily.”
“A lot of businesses close up shop unexpectedly on Titan.”
Places changed. Though usually not this fast.
“Maybe that’s it.” Maksym nodded slowly. “But if so, why leave behind their merchandise? I would assume they would want to sell it at a discount or take it with them.”
“You’re right. That is strange.”
Kira couldn’t think of a reason for it. When a shop closed, its contents were auctioned to the station inhabitants at a steep discount. Whatever remained was resold to the station at cost so they could recoup some of their money.
In neither scenario would the contents of the stores have been left untouched. Thieves would have stripped the store fronts of anything valuable before the hatch of the passenger freighter finished closing behind them.
“Wait here.” Maksym disappeared into the room, coming back a moment later holding a plant sprig. “Look familiar?”
Kira took it, holding it up to examine. “Atropa belladonna.”
The inspiration for the tattoo they’d found on the pirate they’d interrogated. The distinctive bell shaped flowers were missing. As were the highly poisonous black berries; but the leaves were right. Oval shaped and pointed at the end.
“Where did you find this?” Kira asked.
“Every garden we passed had a few growing. The planters of several businesses had them as well.”
Kira handed the sprig back to him, wondering what it all meant. Belladonna wasn’t exactly rare, but there was also no real reason for its presence on the station.
“It could be a coincidence,” Kira said.
Doubtful—but maybe that was her paranoia talking.
“Do humans often plant things toxic to them? Especially where children might play?”
“Actually, yes.”
Maksym would be surprised at just how many of the bushes, trees and flowers humans surrounded themselves with could kill if ingested.
“Tell Jin where the businesses that had belladonna planted in front of them were. If he has time, he can delve into their records.”
Kira didn’t hold out much hope of him finding anything. It seemed like a long shot. Their leads into the shipping yard and the Sweet sisters were much stronger.
“You want me to notify you when I find Roderick and the other three?”
Kira nodded. “Me or Jin.”
From the opposite side of the hall, Graydon called her name in a low voice.
Maksym looked in his direction. “Be careful, heir. The emperor’s youngest Face is loyal, but he’s also ambitious. Don’t get caught between the two.”
Maksym’s concern was sweet. Something Kira imagined a real big brother might say.
She nodded and left him standing in the doorway as she headed in Graydon’s direction. “Let’s go.”
Kira remembered reading a statistic once that said almost thirty percent of all cargo in the Consortium flowed through Titan at one point or another.
Staring at the massive labyrinth of containers stretching several stories high and several miles deep, she could believe it.
It was like that old game of Tetris. Cargo containers stacked one on top of the other in a hodgepodge attempt to maximize space.
The organizational skills required to manage something of this magnitude were mind boggling.
Over the towering stacks, Kira could see a crane meant to lift containers to the upper floors that connected to the rest via short flights of metal stairs.
No wonder Titan was known for piracy.
All they had to do was claim a shipment had gotten lost or misplaced. Who would be able to argue in the face of all this?
“Spread out,” Graydon ordered his oshota.
Amila and Isla glided to their right, disappearing down a row as Solal headed up the stairs to the next floor.
Kira took the squirrel Jin had given her out of her pocket and tapped it on the top of its head. “Time to wake up.”
The squirrel opened jewel colored eyes to blink sleepily up at her.
“Where to?” she asked.
The squirrel straightened. After a short second, it tipped its nose toward a row of containers directly ahead.
Kira walked forward. “I guess we’re playing follow-the-leader.”
Graydon followed.
With the squirrel acting as their navigator, they moved deeper into the labyrinth of containers.
Many they passed had been beaten all to hell, their color faded and worn from decades of use.
Rust spots had invaded the metal in some places.
Some were covered in so many layers of graffiti that you couldn’t tell what color they started life as.
“Do humans always leave artwork on any surface they can find?” Graydon asked, studying the silhouette of a blonde woman wearing tight fitting clothing, her chest and ass thrust out suggestively, her jaw covered in the shadow of a beard.
The style of graffiti was an older one. Done to resemble tattoos from old earth when people still sailed the oceans and used maps that said, “here be monsters”.
“More often than not, yes.”
Kira stopped and tilted her head back to examine another piece of graffiti. A torpedo wearing a top hat and mustache. It belonged to a gang out of O’Riley.
“There are cave drawings that go back over 100,000 years,” Kira said.
From the very beginning of their existence, humans had used whatever tools at their disposal to depict their perception of the world. Even at a time when survival was in no way guaranteed, there were some driven to leave their mark.
Art may have grown more complex and elaborate since the days of using colored mud or dye derived from berries to draw animals on cave walls, but the driving force behind it had never changed. There was an innate desire to express themselves embedded in humanity’s psyche.
“Let’s keep going,” Kira said, moving on.
Some of the containers they passed looked brand new. A quiet hum suggesting the presence of built in generators. Those containers, Kira suspected, were being used to transport live cargo. Livestock or plants.
Or humans.
They traveled deeper into the shipyard. Until the good natured shouts from the dock workers could no longer be heard. The beep of forklifts faded. As did the clank of containers as they were moved from place to place.
“This is a good place for an ambush,” Kira observed, noting the surplus of shadowy recesses that were perfect for launching a surprise attack.
“My thoughts as well, coli,” Graydon purred.
The crazy man looked like that was exactly what he was waiting for.
“Whatever you’re thinking—no,” Kira said with a mental groan.
They were here to investigate. Not poke the problem with a giant stick until someone tried to kill them.
“Are you sure, coli? It could be fun.”
“I’m sure it would be.”
Graydon arched an eyebrow. “What’s the problem then?”
Kira held up the wrist with the cuff. “This isn’t enough?”
Graydon gripped her elbow, bending to press a kiss on the skin right above the metal. “Very well, coli. I will endeavor to be careful.”
“I appreciate it,” Kira said dryly. “I really do.”
Solal whistled.
Kira glanced up to find the oshota standing above them on one of the catwalks connecting the upper cargo platforms. He nodded and pointed to the next row of containers.
“It seems Solal has found something.” Graydon let Kira go. “Shall we?”
Kira nodded, letting him take point as she paced behind him, opening her senses as wide as they would go in case Graydon was right and this was an ambush.
It didn’t take them long to find what had caught Solal’s attention.
“That’s the container from Jin’s holovid,” Kira said, hurrying toward it. This was where the camera had first picked up Caius and the other two. She avoided the sharp edges of bent metal to peer inside the container. “Whoa. Will you get a look at this?”
Plants.