Mutabilis (Oolite Saga Part 2) Read online

  “I shall escort you to the core.”

  And I still owe her.

  Jim was staring intently at the console, trying to concentrate. He was finding it hard, his thoughts continually straying back to Rebecca. His caught his breath every time her face came into his mind; the frown, the eyes, her habit of biting her lower lip when she was thinking…

  Doesn’t she realise that once I find Raxxla Zerz will probably kill both of us? He works alone, he doesn’t need either of us! She’s really lost it if she thinks Zerz will share Raxxla with her! She can’t see past her obsession with getting her family back. Zerz has completely muddled her thinking…

  The Raxxla file was still lying on top of the console. Jim looked at it idly for a moment, and then decided to pocket it, slipping it inside his jacket. He turned back to the console, where Rebecca had noted down a series of system names. With a sigh, he started cross-referencing them on the galactic chart.

  Ryrros.

  System not found. Please re-key.

  He checked the spelling. It was correct. He tried the next one.

  Osalxx.

  System not found. Please re-key.

  He continued down Rebecca’s list, his frown intensifying. None of them appeared on the Chart Eight long range scan. There was a final one called ‘Surt’. It didn’t appear either. He tried the other galactic charts too, but the systems didn’t exist there either. He checked the Imperial and Federation charts too, still nothing. He frowned in puzzlement.

  What’s she playing at? This is all nonsense, meaningless!

  He scanned down the list of systems again.

  Ryrros; Osalxx; Armihe; Vigtno; Degato; Basllip Wideg; Gubere; Wzecni; Vnocot; Dahemt; Surt

  Is it a code? Is she trying to tell me something? Geraint was always the one who was good at code writing!

  If it was a code, it couldn’t have been that complex. Not that Rebecca wasn’t smart, but she’d not had the time. He rewrote the spurious system names into a single stream.

  RYRROS OSALXX ARMIHE VIGTNO DEGATO BASLLI WIDEG GUBERE WZECNI VNOCOT DAHEMT SURT

  Then he spotted something peculiar.

  Two xx’s, that’s not even pronounceable! I know some of the systems in Chart One are a bit of a challenge after the cats and bugs lobbied for their declensions to be included, but there’s no way that can be a real name!

  Osalxx

  Armihe

  Osalxx Armihe? Still means nothing…

  Wait a minute… Backwards! ehimra xxlaso… Raxxla! Can’t be a coincidence!

  Quickly he re-arranged the letters.

  TRUS TMEHAD TOCONV INCEZW EREBUG GEDIW ILLSAB OTAGED ONTGIV EHIMRA XXLASO SORRYR.

  Still nonsense! Wait a minute… SORRYR? Sorry Rebecca? The spaces need to be shifted!

  TRUST ME HAD TO CONVINCE Z WERE BUGGED I WILL SABOTAGE DONT GIVE HIM RAXXLA SO SORRY R.

  He physically jolted back from the console.

  So Sorry… We’re bugged? That whole conversation was for Zerz’ benefit? She didn’t mean it!

  Hope flooded through him.

  That was all an act? My God, I believed it one hundred percent! Did Zerz fall for it too? What’s she playing at?

  Jim tried to think of all the ways Rebecca might be able to sabotage the Imperial Courier. There were a number of obvious ways, but no way he could see that she could do it with Zerz watching her like a hawk. There was no way he’d let her out of his sight.

  But why the elaborate deception? Don’t give him Raxxla?

  Jim felt the creeping fingers of fear and dread. Zerz had threatened to torture and ultimately kill Rebecca if Jim failed to co-operate. Jim knew he couldn’t have allowed Rebecca to suffer that. Zerz obviously knew it too.

  So Sorry…

  “No! You damn stupid girl… !” Jim exclaimed in horror.

  Jim knew that he would have given up the location of Raxxla in exchange for Rebecca’s life. Rebecca obviously had figured that out too, and she had been completely wise to the fact that Zerz would in all likelihood kill both of them once he had acquired the location of Raxxla. Her intention was clear now. She must have figured out a way to sabotage the ship despite Zerz’ watchful eye. She was then going to remove the leverage Zerz had over Jim. Better one of them died than both of them.

  She’s not saying sorry! She’s saying goodbye! Trying to give me a way out!

  Jim jumped to his feet and raced to the door, hitting the opening circuit in haste. The door failed to respond. It was locked from the outside. Rebecca had planned meticulously.

  “Damn you!” Jim raged. “Rebecca, don’t do this!”

  I’d rather both of us died together than live without you now! To hell with Raxxla and Zerz!

  The strength of his feelings surprised him. He pounded his fist impotently on the door, thoughts racing through his head.

  I’ve got to distract Zerz somehow, before she forces him to kill her! How?

  The only way to do that was to find Raxxla. There wasn’t enough data. Here he was, trying to find some damn stupid planet that could appear and disappear at will. There had to be something else he’d overlooked.

  He returned to the console, feverishly scanning through the plots, graphs, reports and spatial co-ordinates. There were too many missing data points, no way to make the plots fit a predictable curve. He needed at least another set of co-ordinates to have a chance to make a prediction.

  Wait just a moment…

  Zerz’ anecdotal evidence indicated the last spurious technology injection had occurred around ten years before, so he was looking for a gravitational anomaly approximately a decade ago, an unstable witchspace signature, or any other kind of anomaly. Was there one?

  There was nothing in the file, or in the console. Jim put his head in his hands, desperately racking his brains.

  Think man! Her life depends upon you right now! There must be something!

  He tried to think of all the anomalies he’d seen reported via the Onrira monitoring feeds; anything reported in the Tionisla Chronicle, Galcop archives, Tianvian conspiracy theories, the Lave space authority reports. Lave…

  He stopped, dumbstruck.

  It can’t be…

  Quickly he typed in a set of co-ordinates and test ran an algorithm based on Zerz’ data sets.

  Triangulation confirmed.

  Bi-trajectory match confirmed.

  Curve error estimate < 15%

  Probability of location 92.8%

  The astrogation computer agreed with his findings.

  Oh my God, it’s so obvious! Right under our noses!

  Jim hit the intercom. “Zerz? Zerz! I’ve found it! I’ve found Raxxla. But if you want it, you’ve got to show me Rebecca's alive!”

  Zerz led Rebecca to the witchdrive core of the Falchion. It was deep within the primary hull, one of the best-protected parts of the ship.

  “Don’t assume I am unfamiliar with the menial tasks required to maintain my ship,” Zerz said, watching her carefully. “Any hint… ”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m out of the airlock with a hole in my head.”

  Rebecca pulled out an access cover, and looked into the core. The alignment mechanism was a pretty standard affair despite the interesting modifications he’d made to the witchspace jump drive. Rebecca would have liked to have had a good nose around those. Zerz stood watching her attentively, still cradling her disrupter.

  The dress and shoes she was wearing got in the way as she crouched down to examine the circuitry. She took off the shoes. She was tempted to throw them at Zerz, but thought better of it.

  “A grease monkey in a dress,” Zerz laughed as she was forced to hitch the dress up around her thighs on order to wiggle into the core. “That’s from Sotiqu you know, probably worth more than all the cargo you shifted last interval. It suits you, though. Why, you could almost pass as a lady.”

  “Almost,” Rebecca replied, glaring back at him. She climbed inside the narrow core access tube.

  She began pulling out the ali
gnment rods, studying them with a practised eye before inserting them back into the core and resetting the nearby console with a series of configuration commands.

  “Your alignment technique is rather unorthodox… ” Zerz commented.

  “It’s about ten times quicker, and more accurate than the Galcop textbook method,” she said, concentrating on her task. “I learnt to do this the old fashioned way, my father trained me on a far away jump ship. I can drop out of witchspace within fifty metres of a marker, using nothing but dead reckoning. Saved my life once.”

  “Impressive,” Zerz commented, sounding anything but impressed.

  The indicators on the alignment circuits all turned green. Rebecca inspected her finished work and then closed the access panel. “There, job done. We’re finished.”

  “Come out and back away from the console.”

  Rebecca did as instructed and Zerz moved up to inspect it, typing in a few diagnostic commands. He nodded, satisfied she had done the job correctly.

  “Fine work for a menial. But, we’re not finished,” Zerz said, casually. “There is a debt unpaid, after all.”

  Here it comes…

  Rebecca glared back at him. “Debt, what debt?”

  “I have considered for quite some time what I would do if I had you within my grasp.”

  “Yeah, I figured you might play the bully!” she snapped angrily, backing away.

  Zerz paced closer. “It pains me to admit it, but you are the only combateer who has ever bested me in combat. Imagine my chagrin when I discover that I have been defeated by a mere trader. A youth. A girl!”

  “Tough break for a chauvinist pig like you!”

  “It was an insulting scar to my ship, and worse, my reputation. I was undefeated, until encountering you.”

  So, this is it. Make your last a fight a good one, girl!

  “You just weren’t good enough,” Rebecca sneered back, goading him. “If you hadn’t witched out, I would have destroyed you over Lave. So much for your reputation!”

  Zerz nodded, his voice bitter and grating. “So you claim. You forced me to run, forced me to choose the coward’s way out to survive.”

  “ You’re an assassin! You’re a coward by definition!” she crowed. “Striking from hiding, fighting only when the odds are in your favour! I bet you were bullied in edu-class! I bet you where the thin kid at the back who never got picked for sim games! You think you’re so superior! You and your high-faluting ways – but you’re nothing more than a joke!”

  “Enough!” Zerz turned and withdrew something from his cloak. Rebecca’s eyes grew wide as she recognised the knife she had tried to stab him with earlier. She looked around her. She was cornered. There was no way out.

  “I am through bandying words with you. It’s time for the repayment of that debt. I swore I would have retribution. Now the time is ripe!”

  She tried to punch him. Her fist came close to connecting with his jaw, but she was thrown to the floor immediately on account of his personal shield, her body convulsing with what felt like a severe electric shock.

  “You coward!” she snarled at him, her head spinning. “Still hiding behind your shield! Why not fight me on equal terms? Ship to ship or hand to hand – I don’t care! Or don’t you have the guts?”

  He walked towards her swiftly and suddenly, grabbing her around the upper neck and jaw, lifting her off the ground.

  His shield is off? Try to…

  She struggled wildly, flailing with her legs trying to get a purchase on him somehow. Her hands grabbed hold of his arm, trying to move it, but she had no leverage. He seemed inordinately strong, she struggled for breath.

  “You are not worthy to be fought on equal terms,” he whispered, his face close to hers. “You are trash, a classless excrement with ideas above her station.”

  “I’m better than you,” she choked out, “and you know it!”

  He rolled the knife around in his fingers in front of her face. The point was inches from her eyes.

  “The damage you inflicted to my ship was a trivial matter to repair, but my reputation was lost. That will not go unpunished.”

  “I’m not scared of you!” she gasped, clawing at his arm and hand, kicking and twisting like a cornered feline. “You’re weak! I bet you can’t even kill me now, you yellow snob… ”

  Zerz’ grip on her jaw was firm. Angrily, he shoved her head back against the wall, fast and hard. She nearly fainted from the pain and shock of the impact. As she struggled, he rammed her head back again. Her arms went limp as she tried desperately to stay conscious.

  She still resisted, but feebly now. He held her tighter, bruising her skin. He was choking the life out of her, forcing her head back. Darkness whirled at the edge of her vision, sparkling lights flashed across her sight.

  He lowered the knife towards her neck. Rebecca braced herself, conscious of her heart beating fast. She anticipated her throat being cut, her lifeblood slowly draining away. Oddly, she didn’t feel scared, but curiously relaxed about it.

  I really am prepared to sacrifice myself for Jim? It seems so! I know I was dead anyway, but maybe I’m not so bad after all! I just hope he escapes from all of this somehow…

  Zerz shifted the knife upwards, away from her throat.

  What’s he doing?!

  Rebecca felt the cold metal against her cheek, and then a hot burning sensation as he slowly drew the knife down to her jawbone. Then the real pain came. She writhed helplessly. She felt blood flowing down her cheek and neck.

  “There, a scar for a scar. Now we are even.”

  He released his grip and she crumpled to the floor, half unconscious, wheezing and gasping air into her starved lungs.

  No! He was supposed to kill me!

  “You can’t goad me into killing you, I know that’s what you want,” he said with a cruel smirk, wiping her blood from his hands with a pocket handkerchief he’d retrieved from inside his cloak. “I’ll give you credit, you are cleverer than you appear.”

  Rebecca struggled to get to her knees and tried to pull herself up from the floor. She intended to rush at Zerz. She slipped and fell back. Her arms and legs were trembling with shock. She touched her cheek and her hand came away slick with blood.

  “With you gone, Jim would have no reason to co-operate with me, would he?” Zerz continued. “He’d probably sacrifice himself in a vain attempt at being noble too.”

  “Leave him alone… ” Rebecca despaired.

  “You were trying to protect him. Nice try; it was very convincing. Unfortunately for you, I am not the fool that Jim is… ”

  “You won’t get Raxxla!”

  “I’m afraid it’s inevitable,” Zerz gloated. “Jim will do anything to save you once he realises you do have feelings for him after all. Once he finds Raxxla, your value, such as it is, diminishes considerably.”

  The intercom buzzed. “Zerz? Zerz! I’ve found it! I’ve found Raxxla. But if you want it, you’ve got to show me Rebecca's alive!”

  Zerz grinned. “You see? You’ve failed. He is too weak to let you go.”

  “Jim, no… ” Rebecca whispered.

  Zerz hefted the rifle.

  Rebecca tried to move, but Zerz turned and dealt her a vicious blow to the head with the rifle butt. Rebecca’s body slammed against the bulkhead wall as she crumpled into unconsciousness.

  Zerz clicked the intercom open, turning his attention back to Rebecca’s prone form with a wry grin.

  “She’s alive,” he replied coolly, and snapped the intercom off again. “For the time being, at least.”

  So, she managed to communicate her intentions to you, did she? She is clever! If she had breeding she would be worthy indeed…

  Zerz grabbed Rebecca’s ankle and dragged her unconscious body from the witchdrive core.

  Jim looked up to see Zerz enter the astrogation lab.

  “Where is Rebecca?” he demanded.

  “She is finishing the priming of the witchdrive,” Zerz replied conversat
ionally. “It is taking longer than she expected. What have you found?”

  There is no way she would take that long to prime a drive! And no way he would leave her unescorted! What’s happened? Has she managed to evade him, or has he killed her? What do I do?

  “I’ve found it. I’ve found Raxxla. But you’ll get nothing unless you take me to her now!”

  Zerz sighed, sounding almost bored. “You will be reunited once I know where Raxxla is.”

  “Not good enough! You will let me see her!”

  Zerz hefted the disrupter with a raised eyebrow.

  “This disrupter can impart a serious amount of pain without actually killing you, you know.”

  Jim whisked his hand across the console, he’d been ready for this. A red ring of light framed the work he’d been doing. A flashing indicator showed a single word.

  Delete?

  “You left the Raxxla file unlocked!” Jim said gleefully. “One press, and its all gone! Everything!”

  Zerz considered for a moment and relented.

  “She’s outside. You may see her briefly. Then I will have the location of Raxxla.”

  “You promise you won’t kill her?”

  “Is this really necessary?”

  “Your word, Zerz! I know what it means to you!”

  Zerz thought for a moment and then smiled thinly. “I promise I will not kill her. She’s outside the ship. Shall we?”

  Outside? Why is she outside?

  Jim left the lab with Zerz following his every move, the disrupter aimed at his back. As Jim came to the loading ramp his heart jumped into his throat at the sight of a crumpled body unceremoniously flung to the ground nearby.

  No!

  Rebecca was lying on her side on the sandy floor of the cavern a few metres from the ramp, still in the dark green dress she’d taken from Zerz’ supplies. It was now dusty and creased, torn at a seam and bloodstained. She’d lost her shoes somewhere too, and was bare foot. A bloodstained knife was embedded in the sandy floor nearby.

  “Damn you, Zerz! What did you do?”

  “She’s alive. You didn’t state precisely what condition she had to be in.”

  Jim cursed again and ran to her, turning her over carefully. She was unconscious, pale, her face battered with a bruise spreading from her temple and across one eye. There was a lump swelling on her head and an unsightly cut across her right cheek was copiously oozing blood across her face, neck and chest.