Farlight is vast. A sprawl of a city trapped in the bowl of a long-dead volcano. It’s layered with history, like some exotic omelet. For a start, single streets have half a dozen different names, while boulevards end abruptly and grand squares have lost out to viral attacks that leave half their buildings looking like molten wax.
Palaces fill the center and slums crawl up the slopes of the volcano’s caldera until the sides become too steep for normal building, and huts on stilts and hardfoam shacks become all that cling to the rock. After a few hundred paces even these peter out and the crater’s sides can be recognized for what they are.
All this I see in the time it takes an old cargo freighter to overfly the city at a height I’m surprised the emperor allows. When I mention this a crew member grins.
“Upset someone, probably.”
“Who did?”
“We’re being paid to drop low over Boulevard Mazimo. So presumably we’re ruining someone’s posh lunch.” He laughs. “I guess they left someone off their guest list.”
Carl grins, slaps me on the shoulder, and offers me half of what remains of his sausage, which seems to be made from rancid meat mixed with enough garlic to bury the stink of one thing under the stink of another.
As good a description of Farlight politics as I’m likely to find.
I thank him, say I’ve just eaten.
He’s the ship’s cargo skipper. We originally met in a bar in high orbit. A joint I’ve never visited before, obviously enough, but recognize immediately. A row of stalls at the back speak of hasty blow jobs and up-against-the-wall fumbles. I get the same glance from a dozen different men, checking for the law, ex-wives, and debt chasers. And a barkeep comes out from behind his counter the moment I trip some scanner built into the door.
“No weapons,” he says.
“I’m not carrying.”
“You’ve been scanned.”
“All right. I’m not intending to use.”
He opens his mouth again.
“I could, however, change my mind.”
The madam laughs. “Give him a drink,” she says, and I’m in.
Carl wanders over to ask where I got my coat. I examine his question for double meanings and wonder if some other query is coded beneath its surface, but the man is serious. He prides himself on dressing well and wants one like it.
“Belonged to a Death’s Head sergeant.”
He looks startled.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “He won’t want it back.” This is true enough. Sergeant Hito took it from stores, the previous owner having no need of it. “You can have it,” I say, “if you can get me to Farlight.”
“There’s a drop shuttle,” he tells me. “Leaves every hour.”
It’s my turn to look at him.
“Ballistic silk lining,” I say. “Half-chameleon outer layer, runs on sunlight and sodium glare. Infinitely more effective than full chameleon, which is much too obvious.” I’m only repeating what Sergeant Hito told me, but it sounds convincing and I want to get rid of the coat. Call me suspicious, I can’t help suspecting General Jaxx has a neat little transponder bug fixed in there somewhere.
Carl’s sold, and I have my ride…
“You sure you aren’t hungry?”
“Quite,” I say, waving away his offer of rancid salami. So Carl wanders away to do whatever he does on Trillion Two Zero Three, which seems to be very little. A while after we land he looks around quickly, checks that the ramp exiting the cargo bay is clear, and nods meaningfully.
A quick shake of my hand and I’m out of his life, my coat still on his back and a half-chewed mouthful of salami still churning away in his mouth.
The landing area is one vast field of docked craft. A high steel fence surrounds it, and from the battered condition of some of the newly arrived ships my guess is the fence exists as much to keep the crews in as to keep the rest of the city out. No one stops me as I slide between two vast pod-shaped vessels and duck under the belly of a third. People come and go, a man laughs out of sight, and a small boy sits on an upturned box watching a five-legged spider bot make a clumsy repair to a runner.
Even out at Fort Libidad we saw runners. They’re those tiny two-man hovers that barely rise above head height, but can handle any terrain. I wonder what use a runner is here and realize, as the boy’s father appears, that the craft is used to navigate the landing area and the boy is a cargo worker’s son.
“What are you doing here?”
“Watching,” I say, which seems fair enough.
The boy’s father scowls.
“Your spider bot’s fucked,” I tell him.
He scowls again, maybe at my language, maybe at my accent, or maybe he just objects to people pointing out the obvious.
“Which is more important,” I ask him. “Getting that weld finished, or having the bot work properly?”
“No one can mend bots,” he says, but I can see him thinking through my question. “Bot,” he decides finally.
Stepping up to the fist-sized metal insect, I grab it while its attention is still on the weld, flip it over, and rip off another two of its legs before tossing the thing to the ground. As the man prepares to shout in outrage I hold up a hand for silence, grab a piece of scrap iron from a half-full skip, and crumble it into small pieces, using the fingers of my new prosthetic.
I drop the crumbs next to the stunned spider bot.
Nothing happens.
Counting down from ten, I hit zero and reach again for the bot when it decides it’s damaged enough already, thank you, and starts eating like its little mechanical life depends on it.
“Three hours,” I say. “Maybe four. Feed it extra for the next few days, until it settles down again.” Already we can see that the bot is beginning to bud three new legs to replace the two I stole and the one that was already missing.
“Fuck,” he says. “Where did you learn to do that?”
“Off world,” I say. “From an engineer. That’s an old combat bot, designed to keep going until it hits fifty percent damage, then instigate emergency repairs. Next time one gives you trouble, mess it up a bit. They usually respond.”
The man looks at me, and then glances around him.
“Ex-army?”
I nod. “And you?”
He doesn’t need to reply, it’s already in his eyes. “Come off one of the ships?”
A glance toward Trillion Two Zero Three answers that one for him.
“Looking for a job?”
“Always.”
The man smiles tiredly. “Yeah,” he says. “Been there…Take the east gate and you’ll find a row of flophouses. Ask for a room by the week and refuse to give a deposit, and don’t pay more than two credits.” His glance takes in the coat Carl found for me after agreeing to transport me for the price of my own.
“You do have two credits?”
“Yeah.”
“Good,” he says. “When you’ve got that sorted, come back and ask for Per Olson. I’m friends with the foreman. He may have something you can do.”
“Thanks,” I say, knowing I’ll never see him again in my life.