Chapter 1: Pod
Chapter 2: Grief
Three days after her father disappeared, Lyra ran out of money and had to leave her budget hotel on Jaques Station. She went to the ship storage bays, one level down from the docking ports, and tried to get to her father’s ship, a well-equipped Anaconda.
‘Access denied’ was a slap in the face to add to her distress. She had nowhere else to go and, not knowing what to do, she drifted down a level, further away from the rotational axis of the starport. The outward acceleration was still only 0.7g. She passed a workshop, wide open to the thoroughfare, where artisans were blatantly fashioning ‘genuine alien jewellery’ for the tourist trade. Jaques Station was importing mainly silver and moissanite for this business.
Lyra moved on and found herself outside the gates of a small shipyard. There were a few half-decent ships on the forecourt, and a great deal of scrap further back. It was a hive of metallurgical activity; malleable alloys were being hammered with gusto; an oxyacetylene torch cast sharp, dancing shadows; and the rattling chains of a block and tackle were being used to move some heavy lumps of spaceship across the shop floor.
Lyra was fascinated by the scene and stood watching for a spell.
‘You know what? I quit!’ came the raised voice from an office.
A middle-aged man in overalls which were spattered with oil, grease, and food stains, stormed, as quickly as his magnetic boots would allow, out of the office and towards the exit.
The owner of the shipyard emerged and called after his ex-employee. ‘Don’t think you’re coming back, and don’t expect a reference, and leave those tools behind; they were never yours.’
He looked with exasperation at Lyra.
‘I don’t suppose you know how to fit a level 5 FSD? Old Ludd there,’ nodding towards the rapidly departing man, ‘doesn’t know and he doesn’t want to know.’
The manager’s mood changed and he chuckled. ‘He said he doesn’t hold with this new quantal enfanglement – his words exactly.’
Lyra smiled. ‘As a matter of fact, my father has a level 5 on his Anaconda; forty-seven light years unladen.’
‘But can you fix one?’
It was Lyra’s turn to laugh. ‘Do I ever. Ours had an experimental side-effect that meant we had to reboot every fifty jumps or so. We called the AFM the Frameshift Maintenance Unit. In the end we took it apart, removed the offending side-effect, and the jump-range actually increased by half a light year.’
The man nodded his head in appreciation.
‘Would you like a job? Can’t pay you until I get paid myself, but I’ll make it worth your time.’
Lyra thought for a nanosecond and agreed to do the job.
‘Problem is, I’m broke and I have nowhere to stay; my father’s missing and I want to find him as soon as I can.’
The man thought for a moment. ‘You do this job for me and you can sleep in this Asp Explorer; she’s not roomy like your old man’s conda – which is where, by the way?’
Lyra told him the story of their jaunt from the bubble and how her father had gone missing.
‘Two things,’ he said. ‘First, if you want to find someone, go and ask Jeeves at Jaques Bar; he keeps tabs on everyone; nobody knows how he does it, but it works.’
‘And second?’
‘If you need some ready money, ask him if you can pull a shift; he’s always looking for bar staff and the tips can be quite good.
‘Thanks, I’ll try that. I’m Lyra, by the way.’
‘Steptoe. You can start with the FSD tomorrow, okay?’
Lyra agreed and set off to find Jaques Bar.
The bar was on a level where the gravity was 1.1g. The human-preferred, one-g level was reserved for the tourists. Next to the bar there was an elevator displaying a warning message: ‘Rich people only beyond this point. To use this elevator, please insert a credit card capable of paying one million credits.’
Lyra side-stepped and was in front of Jaques Bar. It was identified by its neon signage: a large blue ‘Jaques’ in cursive script over a smaller sans-serif ‘bar’ made out in red.
Jeeves himself was on the door and smiling a greeting.
‘Good evening, Miss, welcome to Jaques Bar.’
Lyra was so surprised she forgot her manners. She stared closely at Jeeves’ features.
‘But you’re a bot aren’t you?’
‘I prefer cyborg, but yes; I am the first and maybe the only cybernetic organism allowed to own and run an establishment dispensing alcohol.’
‘I heard someone say that you are actually the mysterious Jaques himself.’
Jeeves, although he was capable of an extensive range of emotional expressions, adopted ‘enigmatic’. He tilted his head, put on a slight smile, half-closed his eyes, and said nothing.
‘I also heard that you could help me find somebody. I want to locate my father, Virgil Capra.’
Jeeves paused only briefly.
‘Virgil Capra was last seen in the FLYIEDGE UE-G C27-16 system.’
‘Where is that? I don’t recognise the name.’
‘I’d say it is over half-way back to the bubble.’
Lyra was shocked and it showed in her face.
‘Is something the matter?’
‘My father was going out mining; his loadout wasn’t set up for long distance travel.’
Jeeves held his inscrutable face for a moment longer, then asked: ‘What was his ship?’
‘A T6. Why?’
To the fullest extent possible Jeeves adopted a compassionate expression. ‘I’m afraid that I have to tell you that an incoming explorer found the wreckage of a T6 not far from the station. There were no survivors in evidence and, crucially, no materials. That has the hallmarks of a pirate attack. But there’s something else.’
‘What?’
‘The data about your father was not from a ship, it was from a personal locator he’s carrying with him. I would say he’s been kidnapped.’
Lyra took hope that her father was at least alive.
‘Kidnapped? I thought only the wealthy were kidnapped; we don’t have any money.’
‘Well, what happens next depends on how disappointed his kidnappers are when they find that out.’
Lyra became agitated. ‘What can I do to rescue him. There must be a way.’
‘The only way is to hire a bounty hunter, but they are expensive; you’d have to cover both their fee and their travelling expenses.’
The innate pragmatism in Lyra’s personality came to the fore. There wasn’t anything she could do for her father right now, so she should solve the problem immediately in front of her.
‘I don’t even have enough for a meal tonight,’ she said. ‘I was told you sometimes hire bar staff?’
Jeeves looked Lyra up and down in an objective, entirely cyborgian way.
‘Yes, I could use you right now, but it’s only fair to tell you that you could earn way more money upstairs in ’Tropic Scena’.
‘Tropic what?’
‘Scena; it’s pronounced “shayna” and it’s their pretentious way of saying “lounge”.’
‘What happens there?’
Jeeves turned on his wistful face.
‘Before we came out here and had our disastrous and premature exit from witchspace, life was one long and joyful party. The stupendously rich party-people who came here were the set who owned entire sectors of space; there’s no Greek prefix to quantify their wealth.
‘’Tropic Scena’ was their hangout. I say was because not so many wanted to make the trip to Beagle Point. Anyway, the drinks in there are recognised as the most expensive in the known worlds. The cocktails are named after ships – that’s because their price is the same as the ship they are named after.
‘The drinks are chilled with a scoop of microscopic ice diamonds and kissed into your mouth by the waiter or waitress of your choice. You have the look of a waitress who would do well there. I only hesitate because you seem like a well-raised young woman. It’s not the life for everyone.’
Lyra didn’t hesitate. ‘I think I would prefer to work for you.’
‘Good choice; the ’Tropic part of the name is short for psychotropic. That’s why Jaques Station has a black market. We want to appear clean so we can travel anywhere without censure, and smugglers bring in the narcotics for us. The bar staff up there ingest some of the drug and are usually so high by the end of a shift that they need oxygen, literally. So, welcome to Jaques Bar as our latest employee. Let me show you around.’
They walked past a table where two women were in earnest debate.
‘I’m telling you, all the present economic instability across the galaxy can be traced back to a single event: the British vote to leave the European Union,’ said one.
‘But what did their Prime Minister mean when she said: “Breakfast means breakfast”, it makes no sense,’ answered the other.
‘I know; words always mean what they mean; that’s what words are for.’
Once out of earshot, Jeeves said to Lyra: ‘Those two are economists from a G500 conference we hosted three years ago. They’ve been debating at that table ever since. They don’t even know we’ve left the bubble, but they’re on expenses so I say nothing.’
There was another animated discussion in a far corner of the bar.
‘Who are they?’ Lyra asked.
‘Ah, the Sisterhood of the Asterism. They are a rag-tag bunch of wannabe Rifters, Raxxlans, and cryptic crossword solvers. They have a theory that there are ley lines running across the galaxy, passing through significant nebulae, and that the lines join up to make an immense seven-pointed star spanning the entire Milky Way. I know they think Beagle Point is one of the points of this star, which is why they were on board when Jaques jumped. Quite why there is such a feature they offer no explanation, but they’re heavy drinkers and heavy tippers, so give them good service.’
Jeeves continued his survey of the clientele.
‘That loner over there is Marcel; he’s a philosopher,’ Jeeves intoned the last word derisively. He’s writing an article about Jaques Station in a style that I find rather self-indulgent. He calls it: À la recherche d’un starport perdu.’
Lyra looked puzzled.
‘It’s French,’ Jeeves explained. ‘It means: In search of a lost starport. He’s reading significance into our arrival in what he calls the EOL-PROUST system.’
‘They’re a bit rowdy,’ Lyra said, nodding towards a group sitting round a large circular table. They were raucous and profane and were laughing uncontrollably at some private joke.
‘That’s a film crew from the Prof.X franchise. They just got back from a field trip so they have a great need to relax. They are making a series called Wonders of the EOL-PROU nebula, and they do say that Professor Brianco X will arrive in person, shortly, to stand atop the central peak of an impact crater while the drone cameras circle him. It’s what the viewers have come to expect.’
There was one last group in the bar; they looked sullen and downcast.
‘That’s a group of Uber pilots hoping for a fare. I can’t understand a word they say.’
Armed with this insight into her customers, Lyra worked her shift and was pleased that she could at least afford to eat for a few days. She was packing up to go when Jeeves approached.
‘Before you go, Lyra, I’ve done some research. I looked at our docking records to get a list of the ships and their commanders who visited here recently. Then I looked for activity in the black market – to find the more disreputable commanders. Next, I compared the locations of those commanders with your father’s known route.’
‘Did you find something?’ Lyra asked eagerly.
‘I certainly did; I can say with complete confidence that your father is held prisoner by either Griff Grief or his wing-man, Vish Wakeman. All three are following the same route simultaneously.’
Lyra was delighted by this progress, but she needed to know more.
‘Can you tell where they are headed?’
‘Mmm; I might be able to – in a way; it will take some time; I’ll dig deeply into Grief’s flight logs, to see if I can find his favourite haunts and hunting grounds. Come back for another shift tomorrow and I should have some results.’
‘In the meantime, I need to find a bounty hunter. Where should I look?’
‘That’s easy; Apostrophe is right next-door; that’s the place for a hired gunship, but, like I said before, they don’t come cheap.’
‘I have to try,’ Lyra said, ‘but why is it called Apostrophe?’
Jeeves clearly enjoyed telling this little piece of Jaques Station history.
‘Back in the day, a gang of assassins arrived at Jaques Station. Writer-fighters they called themselves, using laser-sharp wit and merciless satire as well as super-powered Vipers; in space they would ridicule their quarry and then despatch them.
‘They couldn’t afford ’Tropic Scena, so they settled in here and held court in Jaques Bar. They called themselves the KMH Wing; Kerouac, Miller, and Hemmingway by name.
‘Talk about pedantic; they were so enraged by the missing apostrophe in the name of this establishment that they bought the building next-door and opened their own bar. Their blue neon logo was a single apostrophe which they placed so close to our sign that, reading them together, it looks like Jaques’ Bar. Happy that their work was done they moved on, leaving Apostrophe in the hands of a bounty-hunting friend. It’s been the chilling place for bounty hunters ever since.’
Lyra was beginning to like Jeeves and wished she could stay longer to hear his stories, but there were things she had to do first.
‘I’m off to Apostrophe then. Wish me luck.’
‘Of course I do, but listen; don’t go to Jabez or Edge4, they won’t give the job their full attention.’
‘Thank you so much, Jeeves, I don’t know what I would have done without you,’ and she touched him on the arm.
Clearly moved, Jeeves made a gesture that Lyra didn’t recognise. He held his arms up, palms facing outward at the level of this face. He extended his thumbs until they were touching and then changed the angle of his arms to bring his index fingers together.
‘I haven’t seen that before,’ Lyra said. ‘What does it mean?’
Jeeves smiled and repeated the action.
‘Like this,’ he said, ‘I make the letter H, and when I move my arms like this I make the letter A. It means that you have human intelligence and I have artificial intelligence. Together we are stronger.’
He finished by rapidly spelling: HAHA.
Lyra repeated the gesture and went next door to Apostrophe.
She was only half-way through the door when a man approached. He wore a tight-fitting flight-suit and sturdy, but well-worn, boots. He made Lyra uneasy by the speed of his approach and the wild look in his eye.
‘Have you seen these two?’ he demanded, holding up an old, blurred image of a man and a woman. ‘He’s a doctor and she’s a killing machine.’
Lyra took a wild stab: ‘Edge4?’
‘What? No, I’m Jabez. Have you seen them?’
‘Why, no, I haven’t,’ Lyra said, edging away. She spent the next hour talking to various bounty hunters only to discover that Jeeves had understated the cost of hiring one. The trouble was, Jaques Station was so far away from possible targets the costs were prohibitive.
Almost giving up, Lyra asked the bartender: ‘Where can I find a cheap bounty hunter?’
The bartender looked around to check the manager wasn’t watching; then he leaned forward and whispered: ‘Try Mayzee Layser; she hangs out in Heat Sink; one level down, right beneath us.’
Lyra nodded her thanks and left.
The signs on the next level indicated 1.2g. Lyra turned off her magnetic boots completely.
‘Heat Sink – Come in and Chill’ is what the sign outside the tavern used to say in bright LED lights. Sadly, many of the LEDs had failed and some had turned on spontaneously; the sign now read: ‘eat, Sin, and B ill’.
It was dark in the tavern and Lyra had bumped into a table and kicked a prostrate customer before her eyes adjusted. The body lifted its head, muttered something like: ‘What? Urghh!’ and collapsed again.
When she could make him out, the bartender confirmed the trend she had observed in terms of personal hygiene and customer service. She hoped this was the end of her pub crawl because she didn’t want to see what came next.
The bartender conformed to the cliché; unshaven, surly, wearing a dirty singlet; Lyra half expected to see him spit in a glass to clean it.
‘Can you tell me where to find Mayzee Layser?’
The bartender grunted and flicked his head towards a table at the back of the room. Lyra was quite out of her comfort zone, but thinking of her father she persevered, stepping over another unconscious body before reaching the table.
‘Are you Mayzee Layser, the bounty hunter?’
The woman sat with her back to the wall, facing out into the room. Her eyes were downcast; she was thin – undernourished even – and somewhat malodorous, as Lyra found when she approached.
The bounty hunter nursed the last mouthful of her drink; it looked as though it were gathering dust.
‘Who wants to know?’ she said, in a brisk and aggressive tone.
‘My name is Lyra Capra, and I want to hire you to rescue my father from a pirate called Griff Grief.’
The bounty hunter’s shoulders seemed to droop within her baggy tunic.
‘Can’t help you, kid. My Vulture’s beat up. Can’t afford to repair and restock.’
Lyra knew a thing or two about ships and their jump ranges.
‘A Vulture? How did you get a Vulture all the way out here?’
‘I didn’t, kid. She was in Jaques Station before we jumped from the bubble. I was stuck then, and I’m stuck now, twenty kylies from home.’
‘I have an Anaconda; it’s in storage but I can’t get to it.’
A flicker of interest was quickly suppressed as Layser looked up for the first time.
‘Your dad’s ship, huh? And security won’t let you in. Where’s she stored, I mean who with?’
Lyra tried to remember. ‘I’m not sure; I think it was U Store or Easy Store.’
‘No matter; they’re both operated by Drydo, and he owes me; I rescued a relative of his, too. Upshot is, I can get you on your ship. My, but you’re a pretty thing.’
Lyra blushed; she was at that age when an attractive girl becomes a beautiful young woman. Tall and blonde like her father, her skin had not yet suffered the ravages of space travel. Unaware of her beauty she was still some way from understanding how she could use her looks. Not so, the many who saw her and knew exactly the range of ways they could convert her appearance into credits.
Layser suddenly became animated as though she had just remembered how to think and plan and live.
‘I can strip my Vulture and sell the shell for scrap; we can move some weapons around on the conda, maybe even have the cash to fit a fighter in the hold. I think we might be able to do business.’
Lyra’s heart leapt. She was not stupid; she knew the risks; at the first opportunity, Layser might move against her and take the Anaconda for herself. She would have to be careful.
‘I have a few jobs to finish first, but let’s do it.’
Chapter 4: Robigo
Chapter 2: Grief
Three days after her father disappeared, Lyra ran out of money and had to leave her budget hotel on Jaques Station. She went to the ship storage bays, one level down from the docking ports, and tried to get to her father’s ship, a well-equipped Anaconda.
‘Access denied’ was a slap in the face to add to her distress. She had nowhere else to go and, not knowing what to do, she drifted down a level, further away from the rotational axis of the starport. The outward acceleration was still only 0.7g. She passed a workshop, wide open to the thoroughfare, where artisans were blatantly fashioning ‘genuine alien jewellery’ for the tourist trade. Jaques Station was importing mainly silver and moissanite for this business.
Lyra moved on and found herself outside the gates of a small shipyard. There were a few half-decent ships on the forecourt, and a great deal of scrap further back. It was a hive of metallurgical activity; malleable alloys were being hammered with gusto; an oxyacetylene torch cast sharp, dancing shadows; and the rattling chains of a block and tackle were being used to move some heavy lumps of spaceship across the shop floor.
Lyra was fascinated by the scene and stood watching for a spell.
‘You know what? I quit!’ came the raised voice from an office.
A middle-aged man in overalls which were spattered with oil, grease, and food stains, stormed, as quickly as his magnetic boots would allow, out of the office and towards the exit.
The owner of the shipyard emerged and called after his ex-employee. ‘Don’t think you’re coming back, and don’t expect a reference, and leave those tools behind; they were never yours.’
He looked with exasperation at Lyra.
‘I don’t suppose you know how to fit a level 5 FSD? Old Ludd there,’ nodding towards the rapidly departing man, ‘doesn’t know and he doesn’t want to know.’
The manager’s mood changed and he chuckled. ‘He said he doesn’t hold with this new quantal enfanglement – his words exactly.’
Lyra smiled. ‘As a matter of fact, my father has a level 5 on his Anaconda; forty-seven light years unladen.’
‘But can you fix one?’
It was Lyra’s turn to laugh. ‘Do I ever. Ours had an experimental side-effect that meant we had to reboot every fifty jumps or so. We called the AFM the Frameshift Maintenance Unit. In the end we took it apart, removed the offending side-effect, and the jump-range actually increased by half a light year.’
The man nodded his head in appreciation.
‘Would you like a job? Can’t pay you until I get paid myself, but I’ll make it worth your time.’
Lyra thought for a nanosecond and agreed to do the job.
‘Problem is, I’m broke and I have nowhere to stay; my father’s missing and I want to find him as soon as I can.’
The man thought for a moment. ‘You do this job for me and you can sleep in this Asp Explorer; she’s not roomy like your old man’s conda – which is where, by the way?’
Lyra told him the story of their jaunt from the bubble and how her father had gone missing.
‘Two things,’ he said. ‘First, if you want to find someone, go and ask Jeeves at Jaques Bar; he keeps tabs on everyone; nobody knows how he does it, but it works.’
‘And second?’
‘If you need some ready money, ask him if you can pull a shift; he’s always looking for bar staff and the tips can be quite good.
‘Thanks, I’ll try that. I’m Lyra, by the way.’
‘Steptoe. You can start with the FSD tomorrow, okay?’
Lyra agreed and set off to find Jaques Bar.
The bar was on a level where the gravity was 1.1g. The human-preferred, one-g level was reserved for the tourists. Next to the bar there was an elevator displaying a warning message: ‘Rich people only beyond this point. To use this elevator, please insert a credit card capable of paying one million credits.’
Lyra side-stepped and was in front of Jaques Bar. It was identified by its neon signage: a large blue ‘Jaques’ in cursive script over a smaller sans-serif ‘bar’ made out in red.
Jeeves himself was on the door and smiling a greeting.
‘Good evening, Miss, welcome to Jaques Bar.’
Lyra was so surprised she forgot her manners. She stared closely at Jeeves’ features.
‘But you’re a bot aren’t you?’
‘I prefer cyborg, but yes; I am the first and maybe the only cybernetic organism allowed to own and run an establishment dispensing alcohol.’
‘I heard someone say that you are actually the mysterious Jaques himself.’
Jeeves, although he was capable of an extensive range of emotional expressions, adopted ‘enigmatic’. He tilted his head, put on a slight smile, half-closed his eyes, and said nothing.
‘I also heard that you could help me find somebody. I want to locate my father, Virgil Capra.’
Jeeves paused only briefly.
‘Virgil Capra was last seen in the FLYIEDGE UE-G C27-16 system.’
‘Where is that? I don’t recognise the name.’
‘I’d say it is over half-way back to the bubble.’
Lyra was shocked and it showed in her face.
‘Is something the matter?’
‘My father was going out mining; his loadout wasn’t set up for long distance travel.’
Jeeves held his inscrutable face for a moment longer, then asked: ‘What was his ship?’
‘A T6. Why?’
To the fullest extent possible Jeeves adopted a compassionate expression. ‘I’m afraid that I have to tell you that an incoming explorer found the wreckage of a T6 not far from the station. There were no survivors in evidence and, crucially, no materials. That has the hallmarks of a pirate attack. But there’s something else.’
‘What?’
‘The data about your father was not from a ship, it was from a personal locator he’s carrying with him. I would say he’s been kidnapped.’
Lyra took hope that her father was at least alive.
‘Kidnapped? I thought only the wealthy were kidnapped; we don’t have any money.’
‘Well, what happens next depends on how disappointed his kidnappers are when they find that out.’
Lyra became agitated. ‘What can I do to rescue him. There must be a way.’
‘The only way is to hire a bounty hunter, but they are expensive; you’d have to cover both their fee and their travelling expenses.’
The innate pragmatism in Lyra’s personality came to the fore. There wasn’t anything she could do for her father right now, so she should solve the problem immediately in front of her.
‘I don’t even have enough for a meal tonight,’ she said. ‘I was told you sometimes hire bar staff?’
Jeeves looked Lyra up and down in an objective, entirely cyborgian way.
‘Yes, I could use you right now, but it’s only fair to tell you that you could earn way more money upstairs in ’Tropic Scena’.
‘Tropic what?’
‘Scena; it’s pronounced “shayna” and it’s their pretentious way of saying “lounge”.’
‘What happens there?’
Jeeves turned on his wistful face.
‘Before we came out here and had our disastrous and premature exit from witchspace, life was one long and joyful party. The stupendously rich party-people who came here were the set who owned entire sectors of space; there’s no Greek prefix to quantify their wealth.
‘’Tropic Scena’ was their hangout. I say was because not so many wanted to make the trip to Beagle Point. Anyway, the drinks in there are recognised as the most expensive in the known worlds. The cocktails are named after ships – that’s because their price is the same as the ship they are named after.
‘The drinks are chilled with a scoop of microscopic ice diamonds and kissed into your mouth by the waiter or waitress of your choice. You have the look of a waitress who would do well there. I only hesitate because you seem like a well-raised young woman. It’s not the life for everyone.’
Lyra didn’t hesitate. ‘I think I would prefer to work for you.’
‘Good choice; the ’Tropic part of the name is short for psychotropic. That’s why Jaques Station has a black market. We want to appear clean so we can travel anywhere without censure, and smugglers bring in the narcotics for us. The bar staff up there ingest some of the drug and are usually so high by the end of a shift that they need oxygen, literally. So, welcome to Jaques Bar as our latest employee. Let me show you around.’
They walked past a table where two women were in earnest debate.
‘I’m telling you, all the present economic instability across the galaxy can be traced back to a single event: the British vote to leave the European Union,’ said one.
‘But what did their Prime Minister mean when she said: “Breakfast means breakfast”, it makes no sense,’ answered the other.
‘I know; words always mean what they mean; that’s what words are for.’
Once out of earshot, Jeeves said to Lyra: ‘Those two are economists from a G500 conference we hosted three years ago. They’ve been debating at that table ever since. They don’t even know we’ve left the bubble, but they’re on expenses so I say nothing.’
There was another animated discussion in a far corner of the bar.
‘Who are they?’ Lyra asked.
‘Ah, the Sisterhood of the Asterism. They are a rag-tag bunch of wannabe Rifters, Raxxlans, and cryptic crossword solvers. They have a theory that there are ley lines running across the galaxy, passing through significant nebulae, and that the lines join up to make an immense seven-pointed star spanning the entire Milky Way. I know they think Beagle Point is one of the points of this star, which is why they were on board when Jaques jumped. Quite why there is such a feature they offer no explanation, but they’re heavy drinkers and heavy tippers, so give them good service.’
Jeeves continued his survey of the clientele.
‘That loner over there is Marcel; he’s a philosopher,’ Jeeves intoned the last word derisively. He’s writing an article about Jaques Station in a style that I find rather self-indulgent. He calls it: À la recherche d’un starport perdu.’
Lyra looked puzzled.
‘It’s French,’ Jeeves explained. ‘It means: In search of a lost starport. He’s reading significance into our arrival in what he calls the EOL-PROUST system.’
‘They’re a bit rowdy,’ Lyra said, nodding towards a group sitting round a large circular table. They were raucous and profane and were laughing uncontrollably at some private joke.
‘That’s a film crew from the Prof.X franchise. They just got back from a field trip so they have a great need to relax. They are making a series called Wonders of the EOL-PROU nebula, and they do say that Professor Brianco X will arrive in person, shortly, to stand atop the central peak of an impact crater while the drone cameras circle him. It’s what the viewers have come to expect.’
There was one last group in the bar; they looked sullen and downcast.
‘That’s a group of Uber pilots hoping for a fare. I can’t understand a word they say.’
Armed with this insight into her customers, Lyra worked her shift and was pleased that she could at least afford to eat for a few days. She was packing up to go when Jeeves approached.
‘Before you go, Lyra, I’ve done some research. I looked at our docking records to get a list of the ships and their commanders who visited here recently. Then I looked for activity in the black market – to find the more disreputable commanders. Next, I compared the locations of those commanders with your father’s known route.’
‘Did you find something?’ Lyra asked eagerly.
‘I certainly did; I can say with complete confidence that your father is held prisoner by either Griff Grief or his wing-man, Vish Wakeman. All three are following the same route simultaneously.’
Lyra was delighted by this progress, but she needed to know more.
‘Can you tell where they are headed?’
‘Mmm; I might be able to – in a way; it will take some time; I’ll dig deeply into Grief’s flight logs, to see if I can find his favourite haunts and hunting grounds. Come back for another shift tomorrow and I should have some results.’
‘In the meantime, I need to find a bounty hunter. Where should I look?’
‘That’s easy; Apostrophe is right next-door; that’s the place for a hired gunship, but, like I said before, they don’t come cheap.’
‘I have to try,’ Lyra said, ‘but why is it called Apostrophe?’
Jeeves clearly enjoyed telling this little piece of Jaques Station history.
‘Back in the day, a gang of assassins arrived at Jaques Station. Writer-fighters they called themselves, using laser-sharp wit and merciless satire as well as super-powered Vipers; in space they would ridicule their quarry and then despatch them.
‘They couldn’t afford ’Tropic Scena, so they settled in here and held court in Jaques Bar. They called themselves the KMH Wing; Kerouac, Miller, and Hemmingway by name.
‘Talk about pedantic; they were so enraged by the missing apostrophe in the name of this establishment that they bought the building next-door and opened their own bar. Their blue neon logo was a single apostrophe which they placed so close to our sign that, reading them together, it looks like Jaques’ Bar. Happy that their work was done they moved on, leaving Apostrophe in the hands of a bounty-hunting friend. It’s been the chilling place for bounty hunters ever since.’
Lyra was beginning to like Jeeves and wished she could stay longer to hear his stories, but there were things she had to do first.
‘I’m off to Apostrophe then. Wish me luck.’
‘Of course I do, but listen; don’t go to Jabez or Edge4, they won’t give the job their full attention.’
‘Thank you so much, Jeeves, I don’t know what I would have done without you,’ and she touched him on the arm.
Clearly moved, Jeeves made a gesture that Lyra didn’t recognise. He held his arms up, palms facing outward at the level of this face. He extended his thumbs until they were touching and then changed the angle of his arms to bring his index fingers together.
‘I haven’t seen that before,’ Lyra said. ‘What does it mean?’
Jeeves smiled and repeated the action.
‘Like this,’ he said, ‘I make the letter H, and when I move my arms like this I make the letter A. It means that you have human intelligence and I have artificial intelligence. Together we are stronger.’
He finished by rapidly spelling: HAHA.
Lyra repeated the gesture and went next door to Apostrophe.
She was only half-way through the door when a man approached. He wore a tight-fitting flight-suit and sturdy, but well-worn, boots. He made Lyra uneasy by the speed of his approach and the wild look in his eye.
‘Have you seen these two?’ he demanded, holding up an old, blurred image of a man and a woman. ‘He’s a doctor and she’s a killing machine.’
Lyra took a wild stab: ‘Edge4?’
‘What? No, I’m Jabez. Have you seen them?’
‘Why, no, I haven’t,’ Lyra said, edging away. She spent the next hour talking to various bounty hunters only to discover that Jeeves had understated the cost of hiring one. The trouble was, Jaques Station was so far away from possible targets the costs were prohibitive.
Almost giving up, Lyra asked the bartender: ‘Where can I find a cheap bounty hunter?’
The bartender looked around to check the manager wasn’t watching; then he leaned forward and whispered: ‘Try Mayzee Layser; she hangs out in Heat Sink; one level down, right beneath us.’
Lyra nodded her thanks and left.
The signs on the next level indicated 1.2g. Lyra turned off her magnetic boots completely.
‘Heat Sink – Come in and Chill’ is what the sign outside the tavern used to say in bright LED lights. Sadly, many of the LEDs had failed and some had turned on spontaneously; the sign now read: ‘eat, Sin, and B ill’.
It was dark in the tavern and Lyra had bumped into a table and kicked a prostrate customer before her eyes adjusted. The body lifted its head, muttered something like: ‘What? Urghh!’ and collapsed again.
When she could make him out, the bartender confirmed the trend she had observed in terms of personal hygiene and customer service. She hoped this was the end of her pub crawl because she didn’t want to see what came next.
The bartender conformed to the cliché; unshaven, surly, wearing a dirty singlet; Lyra half expected to see him spit in a glass to clean it.
‘Can you tell me where to find Mayzee Layser?’
The bartender grunted and flicked his head towards a table at the back of the room. Lyra was quite out of her comfort zone, but thinking of her father she persevered, stepping over another unconscious body before reaching the table.
‘Are you Mayzee Layser, the bounty hunter?’
The woman sat with her back to the wall, facing out into the room. Her eyes were downcast; she was thin – undernourished even – and somewhat malodorous, as Lyra found when she approached.
The bounty hunter nursed the last mouthful of her drink; it looked as though it were gathering dust.
‘Who wants to know?’ she said, in a brisk and aggressive tone.
‘My name is Lyra Capra, and I want to hire you to rescue my father from a pirate called Griff Grief.’
The bounty hunter’s shoulders seemed to droop within her baggy tunic.
‘Can’t help you, kid. My Vulture’s beat up. Can’t afford to repair and restock.’
Lyra knew a thing or two about ships and their jump ranges.
‘A Vulture? How did you get a Vulture all the way out here?’
‘I didn’t, kid. She was in Jaques Station before we jumped from the bubble. I was stuck then, and I’m stuck now, twenty kylies from home.’
‘I have an Anaconda; it’s in storage but I can’t get to it.’
A flicker of interest was quickly suppressed as Layser looked up for the first time.
‘Your dad’s ship, huh? And security won’t let you in. Where’s she stored, I mean who with?’
Lyra tried to remember. ‘I’m not sure; I think it was U Store or Easy Store.’
‘No matter; they’re both operated by Drydo, and he owes me; I rescued a relative of his, too. Upshot is, I can get you on your ship. My, but you’re a pretty thing.’
Lyra blushed; she was at that age when an attractive girl becomes a beautiful young woman. Tall and blonde like her father, her skin had not yet suffered the ravages of space travel. Unaware of her beauty she was still some way from understanding how she could use her looks. Not so, the many who saw her and knew exactly the range of ways they could convert her appearance into credits.
Layser suddenly became animated as though she had just remembered how to think and plan and live.
‘I can strip my Vulture and sell the shell for scrap; we can move some weapons around on the conda, maybe even have the cash to fit a fighter in the hold. I think we might be able to do business.’
Lyra’s heart leapt. She was not stupid; she knew the risks; at the first opportunity, Layser might move against her and take the Anaconda for herself. She would have to be careful.
‘I have a few jobs to finish first, but let’s do it.’
Chapter 4: Robigo
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