Chapter 45 Lacy
Lacy
Dinner was an awkward meal of spaghetti and garlic bread, with fizzy fruit-flavored drinks. I hadn’t been expecting it, so it was a nice change of pace. And the garlic smelled much better than the aroma of livestock feed that had drifted through the ship until the filters kicked in.
Dax didn’t seem to enjoy dinner, because he spent most of the meal glaring at Mercer, who, at one point, muttered, “What? They’re noodles.”
Now we were all crammed onto the bridge around the holo table.
All eyes were on me as I zoomed in on the little dot that was Kottke.
“We are here,” I said, pointing to the small dot that represented Justin on the screen.
“Based on the information from the cargo master and Fortuna’s calculations, it will take us about ten hours to reach Kottke. ”
I zoomed in further and the screen switched to a satellite image that I’d been able to find on Justin’s network.
“This was taken a year and a half ago, but as far as I can tell, Kottke isn’t really growing.
” The majority of the image showed dry dusty land.
There was a cluster of buildings near the upper right, maybe twenty of them, and then other buildings scattered about the landscape in ones and twos.
What looked like dirt roads connected them.
“Looks unpleasant,” Dax said. He reached up and zoomed in further, but the picture turned grainy.
“Yeah, it’s mostly sandy desert, from what I was able to find. I prefer my sand on the beach,” I joked.
“Good to know.” Dax wasn’t looking at me, but there was something in his tone that made me tingle.
“Any industry?” Mercer asked.
“Not exactly.” I’d dug up everything I could find during our transit to Justin and I had some thoughts about their industry, but I’d build up to that. “Most of the people and businesses are in and around the spaceport, Crash City.” I pointed to the cluster of buildings.
“Sounds like a great place,” Burn muttered.
“Right? Crash City is home to a couple of bars and restaurants. A place I think is a general store, maybe, and some rundown hangars and ship-repair shops. Those are most likely chop shops.”
“For the crashed ships?” Burn asked.
“Yeah, probably. Most estimates put the population around a thousand permanent residents. I’m not sure how many live in or around Crash City, versus the outlying properties. From what I can tell, it’s mostly subsistence farming and some hard-scrabble mining.”
“For what?” Dax asked.
I shrugged. “Not enough info. The most common beliefs are either gold flakes or some type of gemstone.” Personally, I thought most of the expensive trade goods came from crashed ships, though I could be wrong. I wasn’t a geologist.
“Is that the treasure Burn mentioned?” Orion asked.
He stood a few feet behind the rest of us.
He was a big guy, probably at least six foot three or four.
He was definitely taller than the rest of the crew, so he could probably see over them.
He was solid too. It’d be easy to find him intimidating, but so far I’d experienced nothing but kindness from him.
“Treasure? What? No, that’s . . . I’ll explain that shortly.” Flustered, I tried to remember where I was. I skimmed my notes. “The original settlers were prospectors who thought they could terraform it. The process created an atmosphere, but didn’t do much to the planet itself.”
“When was that?”
“Hundred and fifty years or so ago.”
“And it’s still that unsettled?” Mercer sounded surprised. Then again, with the accent that he put on and off, it was likely he came from one of the big planets at the center of the system. Where everything was built up, because there was no more available land on the surface.
“It’s at the ass end of nowhere,” Burn said before I could reply. I wondered if that was what her home planet was like. “No plants, no industry. Why the hell would anyone want to settle there?”
I agreed.
Dax grimaced. “I’ve been to a few places like that. No central government?”
I shook my head and switched the screen again. This time it showed a closeup of the city, including a control tower and the landing pad. No buildings that looked like they housed a government. “None that I can find.”
Dax stepped back and leaned against the ship’s main console. “No industry. No government.” He looked at me. “You’re thinking crime?”
Glad someone else had come to the same conclusion, I nodded. “It’s the only thing that makes sense to me.”
“Walk us through it,” Mercer said, without even a please or thank-you.
“No central government is a good start. No one to keep an eye on what you’re doing.
It’s possible that it’s run by a crime family, maybe more than one, but it’s so small I can’t see it supporting several.
The control tower looks to be in good shape and that takes funds, especially if you’re bringing things in and out.
Then there’s the warning the cargo master gave me about folks not being that nice.
And finally, the few export records I was able to find read more like a parts catalog than farm products or ores. ”
“I’m guessing you learned all about a life of crime while you served on the ship of the most notorious outlaw—”
“—Scoundrel—”
“What?” Mercer’s question, but everyone was staring at me.
“He’s really more of a scoundrel than an outlaw. Maybe a rogue? I don’t know exactly. He has his own code which, sure, is mostly in the gray area, but the law isn’t always right.”
“How long were you part of his crew?”
Crap. I tended to get a little defensive whenever anyone went after my dad. “Does it matter?” Please say no.
“I guess not. But those are some really interesting ideas you have there. It almost sounds like you believe them.” Mercer stared hard at me.
“Let’s just say I don’t not believe them and leave it at that. Anyway, now that we’ve established that Kottke’s main industry is probably crime, how should we approach this?” Hopefully that would be enough to distract them from my oversharing.
“Wait,” Burn said. “What about your sister? And the treasure?”
With a few flicks of my wrist, the image of Kottke disappeared and was replaced by one of my sister.
“This was one of my sister’s last videos.” I paused, closed my eyes, then opened them and took a big leap. “She’s spent her entire life researching the Queen of Stars.”
“She found it?” Orion spoke at the same time as Mercer. “It doesn’t exist.”
“See, treasure!” Burn bounced on her toes.
“It’s fake,” Mercer said. “She’s feeding us a line.”
“My sister believes it’s real. She has years and years’ worth of research. One of her last entries mentioned going to meet someone who claimed that an escape pod from the Queen of Stars had landed on their home planet. And that they had proof.”
More talking over each other. I just waited them out. Finally, they quieted down. “You don’t think your sister was, um, stupid enough to meet some stranger, do you?” Orion asked gently.
I wasn’t so sure about that, but I wasn’t going to blame Layla. “I think she took all possible precautions,” I said carefully. “From her records, she met them in a public space, on a public station.”
“This is neither,” Mercer snapped.
“Well aware,” I snapped back. “It took me a while to figure it out. She said she met this person on a forum for speculation about the fate of the Queen of Stars. She was skeptical, but they sent her enough of a teaser that she believed them. They set up a meeting on Causeway, as far as I can tell, but I don’t think she made it there. I think she ended up here, on Kottke.”
It had taken me days and days to come up with this theory. No, it wasn’t just a theory. I had painstakingly pieced together her last few days.
“The person who posted on the forum? I did some digging through the forum and her records. His name is Johnstone Farrow. Some of his postings refer to a hot, dry, desert planet. And,” the piece de resistance, and the reason I knew my sister had decided to meet him, “one of the original crew on the Queen of Stars was named Gaylord Farrow.”
The bridge exploded in chaos as everyone spoke at once.