Balance of Terror Read online

  After some furious thought, she looked up at the low transparent ceiling. “When I see you,” she told the air in a calm voice, “I’m going to wring your neck.”

  When she left the booth, Moon was told that she’d passed the verification. The clerk initiated the transfer and watched her with a speculative gleam in her eye. Something about the woman’s demeanour was discomfiting. Did she know Moon was on the run and was only waiting for a free moment so she could call the authorities? Or maybe there was someone waiting outside the bank, the clerk’s accomplice, ready and prepared to mug any customer with fat cash in her hands?

  Both women remained silent.

  A muted ping indicated that the transfer had been completed and the clerk’s gaze dropped to the credit disc. She slid it across the counter, watching it with a sharp gaze that reminded Moon of a raptor bird watching a scurrying mouse. A moment later, Moon took the disc – the top of it still warm from the clerk’s brief handling – and slipped it into a small pocket attached to her personal unit. She was now in receipt of two kilo-credits and a growing sense of unease.

  “Is there anything else I can help you with?” the woman asked with an over-bright smile.

  “Is there a bathroom here?” Moon suddenly asked.

  The clerk pointed towards her left. “Follow the sign to ‘Private Investments’. You should see an arrow to the facilities there.”

  With a nod, Moon thanked her, and headed in the direction she was given. However, when she was sure the clerk’s attention was on a new customer, Moon suddenly changed direction, headed for a side-entrance and slipped out into the pedestrian traffic.

  Maybe she was being paranoid. Maybe the woman was just wondering what Moon was going to do with two kilo-credits. Whatever the reason, Moon wasn’t taking any chances. She stopped at a nearbythrift shop, bought a cheap shirt to change into and released the tight bun of her hair, finger-combing the chocolate-brown tresses so they flowed over her shoulders and helped obscure her face. Only then did she head back to Srin and the relative safety of their quarters.

  The lack of rattling as she entered their temporary habitat was one of the most reassuring sounds Moon had heard in a while. Her new concoction of drugs for Srin’s condition had obviously worked. It was now time to find the mysterious Gauder and get the hell off Marentim.

  With a more critical eye, Moon quickly inventoried their possessions. Besides a few more sets of clothes, and the net-scoop for which she had overpaid, there was little to take away with them. She had once been proud of reducing her life to such minimalism but all it reminded her of now was a lack of permanence and, at best, a fragile sense of security.

  “I thought I heard someone.”

  The voice was low and creaky. Moon turned and saw Srin grinning weakly at her from the door. For once, his shirt wasn’t soaked in sweat.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “Tired. A bit disconnected. But not as bone-weary as I was.” He trained his light gaze on her. “You played the chip, didn’t you?”

  “How—?” She shook her head. “I’m an open book to you, aren’t I?”

  He moved towards her, each step slow and deliberate. Even if he wasn’t in pain any more, Moon knew he was still far from healthy.

  “A delightfully sensuous book,” he replied, reaching her.

  He enfolded her in his arms and Moon melted against him, closing her eyes. She knew she had to be strong for the both of them, but the urge to give herself up to his embrace was too tempting.

  “A book with complexity,” he murmured against her hair. “With a surface as smooth as the finest silk, and just as tough, covering an engaging character of indomitable will.”

  He rocked her gently from side to side and she happily swayed to the rhythm he set. This was the first time since almost the moment they’d boarded the Velvet Storm that they’d been so close. They had shared greater intimacy while trapped on a military spaceship, she thought with a snap.

  “Just kiss me, will you?” she demanded softly, tilting her head back.

  “Whatever you say, my darling physicist.”

  His lips were dry and a little chapped, a rough edge of skin catching at Moon’s tender flesh. She didn’t care. He wasn’t a mass of convulsions in her arms, labouring for breath, his muscles taut in tension. He was warm, alive, steady, and she wanted him more than she had wanted anyone in her life.

  “You feel so good,” she told him when they both finally surfaced for air.

  “All thanks to you.” He nuzzled her ear. “Anyone else would have left me on that landing pad to spasm myself to oblivion. But not you. You dragged me here, got me well, negotiated this strange world, all without a word of complaint.” His grip tightened. “You’re one in a billion, Moon Thadin, and I wanted to tell you that I’m more in love with you today than I was yesterday, and more again than the day before, back through time to the very first moment I saw you.”

  Did he know how much she ached to hear those words? She breathed in deeply, as if she could inhale his statements into the very core of her. If he wasn’t yet physically capable of handling the burden of getting them off Marentim, his words were the next best thing.

  “You’re right,” she told him, reaching up to lock her fingers behind his head.

  His eyebrows lifted. “I am? About you being one in a billion?”

  “No,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You were right about the other thing. I played the chip.”

  “And did your mysterious friend tell you where we were to head next?”

  “Mmmmm.” She kissed the edge of his mouth. “Not only do I have a destination, but I am also in receipt of a sizeable chunk of credits. And I have the name of our next contact.”

  She related the contents of Kad’s message and her trip to Marentim National and back.

  Srin’s eyebrows rose. “You are becoming a paranoid character, aren’t you?”

  “If you spent as much time out on the streets of this planet as I have,” she retorted, “you would be too. It’s fang-versus-fang out there.”

  “And, from the sounds of things, you can’t wait to leave?”

  She grimaced. “I think I can understand why Kad chose this place as a hideout for us, but if I never set foot on Marentim again, it’ll be too soon.”

  A sudden thought struck her and she pulled away.

  Srin frowned and held on to a hand that was in danger of slipping from his grasp. “Oh-oh, I know that look. It means that Doctor Moon Thadin has just had a brainwave.”

  “I….” With a small jerk, she freed herself and walked over to the small sofa, her steps hesitant.

  “Kad sent me two kilo-credits,” she finally said, spinning around and perching herself on the hard, rickety armrest.

  “So you said,” Srin answered, his gaze intent on her. There was a puzzled frown creasing his forehead.

  “Two kilo-credits can get us off this planet,” she continued and bit the bottom of her lip. “It doesn’t have to be on Kad’s transport. Anybody would take the money and get us away. We could go someplace, someplace unexpected, where neither the Republic nor Kad Minslok can find us.”

  “You want to run away from your ex-research partner?” Srin’s frown deepened. “But why? I thought our whole plan was to get to him and ask for sanctuary?”

  They stared at each other.

  “There’s something I didn’t tell you,” Moon admitted, after a long pause. “Do you remember the town of Wessness on Slater’s End?”

  Srin shook his head. “Not very well.”

  No, of course he wouldn’t. At the time she made her first call to Kad, Srin was a shivering mess at her feet. Her old research partner had told her that he was willing to help her escape from the Republic’s clutches but that he wasn’t willing to risk his aid for her “drug addict” friend as well. Moon remained obstinate. The both of them came, or neither of them. Kad had then asked her what she had to trade in return for the rescue.

  “I told him I sti
ll had my research notes,” she finished, watching Srin carefully as she related the episode.

  He didn’t look happy. “You traded your stellar re-ignition work for our freedom?”

  She threw her hands into the air. “I would have traded anything else, but I didn’t have anything else. And I thought we were very close to getting caught.”

  Srin’s voice rose a little higher in disbelief. “Does he know the missile failed?”

  “Yes,” Moon admitted, trying hard not to think of that moment when the probe had launched, had penetrated the star…but failed to initiate the cascade reaction she’d hoped for. “But I told him I knew where we went wrong.”

  “So you lied to him?”

  Moon laughed, but the sound was shaky. Roughly, she ran a hand through the hair that tickled her shoulders. “Love, I would have lied to the Republic’s First President himself if I thought it would buy us a way off that rock.”

  But she wasn’t getting off the hook that easily.

  Srin’s voice was measured. “And yet something makes you think that this Kad Minslok character can’t be trusted?”

  Moon looked down at the floor and clicked her tongue in exasperation before meeting her lover’s gaze again.

  “You didn’t know me when I was Moon Thadin, premier researcher at the Phyllis Science Centre.” She made her voice sound dramatic before grimacing. “To put it in a nutshell, I was an arse. No, really,” she added, when Srin snorted. ”I had run through rivers of money and I didn’t care if I ran through an ocean more, if it meant I could vindicate my research. I,” she swallowed, “I didn’t take much notice of anyone around me, except through the lens of how they could help my research.”

  “Then you met Kad Minslok and you changed?”

  “Oh no,” Moon countered emphatically. “I didn’t take any notice of Kad at all. Never asked him about his personal life, his hobbies or interests. To this day,” she shrugged, “I don’t know if he’s bonded or even if he has children.”

  “You were focused, Moon,” he told her gently.

  She shook her head. “Oh no, I was selfish.”

  Srin was silent for a moment. “So what happened?”

  Moon raised a hand and let it fall limply back to her lap. “Well, Kad went all ‘terrorist rebel’ on me and managed to evade the Security Force squad that was sent to apprehend him. I was thrown in jail under suspicion of being an accomplice.

  “Look,” she said suddenly, “the reason I’m mentioning all this is that, while I thought I hadn’t taken notice of anybody, I think my subconscious was recording…impressions of Kad.”

  “Impressions?”

  “It’s difficult to put in words,” Moon said with a sigh. “Here I am, a renowned scientist, and I’m left scrabbling around trying to explain my intuitions.”

  “I wouldn’t be so dismissive,” Srin said. “If it wasn’t for my intuition, I doubt I would ever have trusted you. And look what happened when I did? We’re freer than we’ve been in decades.”

  Moon allowed herself a small smile before continuing her story. “All right. Let’s say my intuition is worth something. What it told me is that the Kad I faced on Wessness was different to the Kad I had worked with.”

  “Different. In what way?”

  “More confident.” She sifted through her memories of that conversation. “More ruthless. There was something about him I wasn’t so comfortable with.”

  Srin looked up at the ceiling. Moon could tell from the expressions flashing across his face that he was trying to put everything he’d told her into a coherent model.

  “So,” he finally ventured, “from what you’re saying, you’re afraid Kad Minslok wants to use your research in the same way that the Republic does.”

  Moon nodded. “That’s it. Exactly. Some part of me feels as if we’ll just be swapping one kind of gaoler for another.”

  “And you’re proposing we bypass both parties and escape to another part of the galaxy?”

  Her face brightened. “Why not? Why get mixed up in the whole Republic-rebel conflict at all?” She lowered her voice. “With the money Kad gave me, we have a chance for a new life, Srin.”

  Moon realised the tone of her voice was pleading, but she didn’t care. There was an anxiety gnawing at her, a sensation she feared would become prophetic if they continued on their current path. She would have found the idea of surrendering to her feelings ironic if the situation weren’t so grim.

  Srin shook his head. “I don’t know that I agree, Moon. At the moment, I feel we have less choice than you may think. While we were on the Velvet Storm, I picked up some interesting information.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, for one, it’s difficult to legitimately get from one system to another. There are random Republic sweeps, instant money trails generated whenever a large enough transaction is made, not to mention constant identity checks. If you’re thinking of moving to non-legitimate methods of transport, then we’re talking serious money, the kind that might look at two kilo-credits as just so much small change.”

  Moon recollected Srin’s behaviour on the pirate ship – his illness and the debilitating side-effects – and narrowed her eyes. “I thought you were ill for most of the time on the Velvet Storm?”

  “’Ill’ doesn’t mean I lose my hearing, my love. And I’ve found that people talk a lot more freely when they think they’re around an invalid.” His voice was dry. “It’s as if, by losing my mobility, they’d assumed I’d also lost my intelligence.”

  He winked at her. “But, to get back to our current problem, let’s say you’re right. Two kilo-credits might be enough to buy us passage to another sector, but what would we do then? Would we have enough left over to buy fake identities? Disappear to some remote place? Set up an early-warning security system in case someone stumbles across us? Escape again, if we need to? We’ll be out of money before we do half of that, and then we’ll be back where we started.”

  “You have a point,” she conceded ruefully, after a long pause. “Our problem has always been that we haven’t known what we were up against until we were in the middle of it. And,” she added mournfully, “bearing that in mind, two kilo-credits won’t last very long at all.”

  She twisted her lips, clearly unhappy. “So you’re saying we should trust Kad?”

  “I say we should keep your idea in mind. Honestly, at the moment, I don’t think we have enough cash to finance the kind of escape you and I are imagining. If the chance comes for us to run off by ourselves, then I say we grab it. But, if we haven’t, then let’s see if we can negotiate something with this old research partner of yours. You never know, he might not be as inflexible as you think.”

  Her smile was wry. “Unfortunately, you’re making way too much sense. As usual.”

  He twitched his nose at her. “I’m like that. Sure you want to stick with me?”

  “I’ve never been surer of anything in my life,” Moon said. And she meant it.

  Chapter Three

  So Gauder was somewhere near them. Maybe.

  That wasn’t much of a tip.

  Moon scanned a map of Toltuk again, leaning forward as the small living-room display leisurely scrolled its way across the city. Beside her, Srin was easing back in the chair, his eyes closed. He had received his morning medication and the first jolt had already hit, essentially poleaxing him. Moon knew it was only sheer will that kept him conscious at all.

  “It’s a very disorganised city,” she remarked. “Can you see that? Accommodation areas are mixed with heavy industries. The spaceport is right next to an education quadrant. And, even within clearly designated regions, there are pockets of inappropriate developments.”

  “Bribes. Pay-offs,” Srin murmured.

  She nodded. “That must be it. I’m surprised the Republic hasn’t established a more direct role here, but maybe there’s nothing on Marentim they particularly want. And, in the meantime, the place slowly descends into entropy.”

  �
��Your friend said that this Gauder character is a trader?”

  “A ‘merchant of goods and services’, was how Kad put it, although the way he said it hinted that Gauder doesn’t exactly follow the law.”

  “Contraband goods?”

  “That’s what it sounded like although, on this planet, that’s not difficult to achieve. Not when illegal activities appear to outnumber legal ones.”

  Moon watched as the display moved down one row and began scrolling in the opposite direction. “I even tried searching on the name, not just here in Toltuk, but in nearby cities and towns as well. No luck.”

  The display scrolled another two rows.

  “Kad Minslok appears to like puzzles,” Srin finally observed. “He used one to smuggle a comms chip to you, remember? Maybe this is a puzzle as well. It’s the only thing I can think of, because if this is nothing but a simple search, we could be here for centuries trying to find this man.”

  Moon brightened. Srin’s guess about Gauder’s name being a puzzle was the best suggestion she’d heard all morning.

  “Maybe there’s a trick around his name?” she mused aloud. “G-a-u-d-e-r. If we take the simplest strategy of reversing the letters, it becomes ‘Reduag’.”

  “Try it. Use the permutations as search terms.” Srin’s voice was getting fainter. “Maybe something will come up.”

  Moon drew a blank with “Reduag”. And with several other variations. But the results pinged with “Durega”.

  “Ha!” she declared, shouting at the display. “Got him!” She turned to Srin but he was unconscious.

  She stared at his face for a long moment. It was easier on her conscience if she interpreted what he was going through as sleep, rather than admitting that she didn’t understand the full effects of the drugs she was plying him with. For all she knew, she was putting him into a coma on a regular basis.

  “Maybe I should have studied pharmacology instead of physics,” she muttered as she extended a hand to his furrowed brow. The skin remained cool beneath her touch.