Nixon keeps his hood up and his head down, only raising it to make sure that the new towers are still in front of him. He walks what feels like a couple of blocks and starts to hear the sounds of engines. Then come the shadows of ships passing overhead.
A few blocks later the sounds of pilots and crews and mechanics gets added. Then Nixon looks up and his guideposts are now in front of him stretching tall into the sky. A block later and it’s the Exte starport.
The outside is all metal with a pair of doors on the front. Nixon steps inside, and the place is packed. Crowded. Loud. The air full of the funk of a dozen or more species inside, either looking for a ship or looking to work on one.
Captains fly into Exte, put down at the port solo and leave a few hours later with a full crew. Plenty of the people Nixon knew from the Goodtimes Palace made their money crewing for those captains. It often didn’t pay much, at least not what was expected. Those captains come up with creative ways to justify increasing their share of whatever job they were doing. So Nixon stuck to planetside work. At least that was honest. Mostly.
Nixon pushes through the crowd waiting in the lobby of the starport. It’s full of filthy looking Uzeks. Spit-shined Snapsits. And at least a dozen other species looking for a few fast credits.
He repeats “Six twenty eight” over and over as he makes his way toward the elevators. He waits for the doors to open then steps on. He keeps his hood up and head down and listens to the chimes for each floor. He counts his way to six then steps off.
The smell of burning oil and fried electrics hits him in the face as he steps off. Air recyclers woosh and a thin haze of smoke hangs in the air. Signs point the way to the slip he’s looking for and the smoke gets thicker. He can smell the scent of fire retardant foam, and the chatter of voices starts to rise over the air recyclers. Then it’s footsteps. The people who belong to these voices are moving around.
Nixon raises his head, and the floor is full of people. All of them are holding blasters, and they are milling around what’s left of a small hauler. Holes are punched in its side where holes shouldn’t be. Scorch marks cover the sides, and everything looks like it’s slightly warped. Everything near the ground is covered in the fire foam that’s slowly dissipating.
Nixon looks up from the crowd to the slip number above the ship. Six twenty eight.
“Shit,” he says and keeps walking. These aren’t Uzeks. It’s more humans. “What the hell, Shaine?”
The case tucked under his arm starts to feel heavier, more like an anchor now and less like the opportunity it seemed it’d be last night. He pushes the button for the elevator and thinks again about just setting the case on the ground before he gets on. Just leave it there and walk away from this whole thing.
He can avoid the Uzeks. Go back out to that little spot in the sand and dig up the buried bucket of seeds that he stashed away. Take them to someplace other than Exte. Sure, it’s the biggest city on the planet, but it’s not the only one. There are other places where he can sell seed. There are other buyers, both nefarious and righteous.
The chime for the elevator sounds, and the chatter from the humans milling around slip 628 stops. Nixon waits for the doors to open. He hears footsteps. They are getting closer. The chime sounds again and the doors to the elevator begin to slide open, and Nixon steps inside before they are finished.
Footsteps turn the corner as the doors begin to close, and a face appears just on the other side as they finish.
“Hey!”
The man who’d been approaching jams an arm in the doors as they close and keeps the elevator from leaving. Nixon steps forward to push the arm back through and the guy grabs a handful of Nixon’s cloak.
Nixon struggles to get himself free, and the man who’s holding onto him calls others for help.
“It’s him,” he shouts. “I’ve got our courtyard man.”
Nixon digs at the fingers that are clinging tight to his cloak, but they aren’t moving. They are big meaty things, thick like the lower branches of a Gefta tree. The man takes his other hand and his Gefta fingers and pulls the elevator doors open. He looks at Nixon.
The whites of his eyes are yellow. The pupils are red. He smiles a big, wide smile at Nixon. He reaches with the other hand and tries to grab another handful of Nixon’s cloak.
Nixon stops him then smiles back. He takes one of the man’s fingers that he’s got hold of and jams it in his mouth. He bites down hard and feels the skin snap under his teeth. He works his teeth through the meat of his finger and gets to bone.
The man is screaming and whatever bits of cloak he’d been able to get a hold of he’s let go of now. Nixon works harder, bites with everything he has and feels the knuckle snap. There’s the tip of a finger in his mouth. The tang of blood is on his tongue. He spits all of it out at the feet of the man who’d had hold of him.
The man pulls his hand back and holds it in front of his face, staring at the space where the end of his finger should be.
Nixon rapid-taps the button that will send the elevator to the first
