I look at her neck. Sure enough, among the crinkled flesh I see the two round scars.
‘Was I a convict?’ Again, the woman meets my eyes with that gaze I find so hard to hold. ‘Yes. Does my name not give it away?’
‘Your name?’
‘Pec. It’s short for Peccable. That means, “one capable of sinning”.’ She smiles widely, showing worn, real teeth. ‘The prison warden who released me fancied himself a scholar.’
‘If you were one of the first here, and before that served time, you must be…’ The General frowns. ‘Just how old are you?’
‘Gabi,’ warns Falco.
‘It’s alright.’ Esterházy laughs. ‘To answer your question, Gabriella, I am almost eighty. Quite the record for Factus, I’m told.’ She sits back. ‘I have seen many things in my years. I was born on Earth, you know, in a city on a great river, what feels like a thousand lifetimes ago.’
‘On Earth?’ Pegeen’s voice is shy, almost awed. ‘And, is it true that you once ran a brothel, on Quaker’s Gasp?’
‘Quite true. There were not many opportunities for work out here, then, except on the terraform rigs. And a great many lonely people.’
Her voice is soft, and in another time or place I might have been soothed by it. But when I look at her closely, what I see makes me wary. Beneath the wrinkled skin and the pinned-back grey hair is a woman as tough as wood hardened over decades into iron; into a substance quite unlike what it once was. I stare, fascinated, wondering how I might find a moment to speak with her alone, and if I do, whether I can ask…
‘I wonder—’ I begin.
‘Excuse me.’ She rises stiffly, leaning on her gun. ‘I am afraid my attention is required in the office. But please, eat, drink.’ Her eyes find mine. ‘We will speak more soon.’
* * *
As soon as she’s gone, Falco pushes her plate away. ‘Peg, go check on Horse, would you? See if you can’t hurry him along.’
‘What’s the rush?’ Silas helps himself to Esterházy’s unmarked bottle. ‘It’s alright here.’ He smiles at me, pouring a shot of liquor and pushing it in my direction. The General promptly grabs it and knocks it back, making Silas laugh.
‘Lay off that,’ Falco says to her. ‘You’re too young for it. And we’ll need to be on guard if things get ugly.’
‘Why would they get ugly?’ Silas asks easily. ‘We’re causing no harm.’
‘Yet,’ Falco mutters. ‘Listen, that Marshal I spoke of, his name’s Joliffe. He’s entirely mad, and what’s worse, won’t admit it. Makes him dangerous.’
‘Franzi told me about him,’ the General says, scraping her plate. ‘Said he flies an old buzzard, fitted out with a hanging net to transport prisoners. Apparently, he once let the net drag behind the buzzard for forty klicks. Nothing but a bag of raw meat left of the prisoner by the end.’ She smirks at Falco. ‘Franzi said last time you were here you shot him in the thigh, and he went berserk.’
Falco smiles humourlessly. ‘Gutspill deserved it. A whole system of people scattered from every goddam corner of old Earth and there are still some white people who want to see us under their boot.’
‘Can’t Esterházy do something about him?’ Silas has lost some of his levity. ‘She said we were under her protection.’
‘She said we were under her roof. It’s different. Even she can’t go too far against the asshole. For one thing, he’s not employed by the Accord. He works for the insurers.’
Silas groans. ‘Should have known.’
‘Just keep your eyes open, alright?’ Falco orders.
‘Yes, ma’am.’ The General makes a grab for the liquor bottle. ‘If he comes in, he’s carrion food.’
It’s not until some while later that I realise that the General is drunk, or rather, we all are.
‘If this is a port,’ the General says, her eyes on a woman who has just entered, wearing the uniform of Provo Swift – fleetest fleet in the system emblazoned across her back – ‘why can’t we barter passage here? Get off this stinking rock? That’s what we want, isn’t it?’
I’ve been wondering the same thing myself. I tap the cup on the sticky table, listening as a cargo tout bawls out the list of wares available to be “handed on” to another courier.
Fifteen gallons of pure liquid Brovian shit, seven crates of accelerated, artificial, top-drawer amylase. Five thousand kopeks of primo-grade grub spawn…
‘Go ahead and barter.’ Silas shrugs. ‘Without a trusted contact you’ll be handed over to the Accord at the nearest satellite outside of atmos. These haulers care about one thing, and that’s profit.’
He fills my cup once again.
‘What about you, Ten?’ he asks softly. ‘What do you want?’
‘It’s not about what I want.’
‘But if it were?’ There is a question in his voice. His hand grazes mine beneath the table, and I meet his eyes. His face is flushed with drink and the heat of the place, even as the desert night shivers outside.
‘Well as long as someone within the upper echelons wants me dead, I have only one option,’ the General interrupts. She squints at me, one eye closed. ‘I will have to invoke the Last Accord, like some common criminal.’
‘No extradition from a home planet,’ Silas muses. ‘Would that work for you, Ten?’
I shake my head. ‘I was exiled from the Congregations when I joined the FL. And after sentencing I was registered to the hulks.’ I laugh into the cup at the horrible irony of it. ‘The only place I am physically safe is in prison. And I am not about to break back in.’
‘Too bad for you,’ the General slurs. ‘But if I can get to Felicitatum…’
‘You’re from Jericho?’ Silas’s face brightens. ‘But so am I. Which warehouse? I grew up in Braxoco, then Gul-Kline-Sun.’
The General snorts at him. ‘Should have known you’re a greener. I was born in Frontera.’
As they bat insults back and forth, Pegeen hurries into the saloon, covered in dust from the winds that must be spluttering
