And another one. As you know I'm no expert on weaponry, so if anyone finds anything in the gun-dealer's scene that needs attention, please let me know.
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Othaglot & Cane, Chapter 24.
Chapters 1-22
here, chapter 23 a few Posts down.
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A day later I was in a shuttle, blazing down deep into the atmosphere, Plenty's fierce sky and all-encompassing ocean painting a sheer canvas of blue before me. The pilot- a talkative human named Chell with rope-like hair and intricate tattoos - had plunged from orbit and levelled out at a point several thousand kilometres from the space port, so we would be another few hours in flight before landing. It's not a particularly efficient way of getting from place to place, but I've noticed that Cue Cappan pilots often do the same thing when they've been off-planet for a long spell- Maybe it's just a way of prolonging their brief respite from space, or perhaps they need time to readjust to the idea of nothing but atmosphere above their heads before venturing out into the open. Either way, I welcomed the chance to see something of this planet before facing the mission ahead.
As we cruised at just a few kilometres' altitude, I watched Plenty's single ocean roll serenely along beneath us, stretching away to the horizon, largely uninterrupted for sixty thousand kilometres in all directions. Every few minutes we would pass over one of the clusters of flat, roundish little islands that make this planet's only claims to dryness, the unvaried dull yellow of the native plant life looking appropriately humble against the shining cobalt of the sea.
It was half an hour before we encountered anything more interesting. Chell pointed out a number of light patches in the water, each one perfectly circular and attended by a smattering of ships and floating platforms.
"Underwater mining." The pilot shouted over her shoulder. The shuttle’s engine wasn’t particularly loud, but she needed to shout because the music blaring from somewhere- which could have easily passed for unshielded engine noise- drowned her out. "Plenty's huge, but more than nine-tenths of the surface is ocean so obviously most of the good stuff’s on the sea bed."
"What about the Sergetti population?" I yelled, removing the viking helmet and tenderly testing the irritated skin it revealed. "I thought their government had rights to the ocean."
"No, just some of it, and technically they're only renting that. They have a few little cities out in the depths somewhere, although obviously they don’t get too many visits from air-breathers like us. They aren't the most welcoming people anyway, if you get my meaning.”
"How can you trust them?" I asked. "After the war, I mean."
"That was a long time ago. I mean they don't particularly like aliens but they have kind of gotten used to us. Anyway, I'm sure the secret services keep an eye on their comings and goings, they must have their methods."
I felt a rush of cold at this Last statement. Obviously, going undercover in any circumstances inspires a certain degree of healthy paranoia, but in this case I was running on overdrive.
Soon we started to see inhabited islands, all or partly colonised by introduced plants that offered countless shades of green in neatly farmed shapes. Few of them held more than one small settlement, and where they did winding, narrow roads reached out to connect the little pockets of civilisation. It was strange to see such development inland when the beaches were so clear, but I suppose it would be just as strange for a human to see an island virtually untouched in the middle, and yet completely encircled by the busy canals and buildings we construct in the coastal shallows.
According to Chell there were nearly three hundred thousand of these tiny landmasses on Plenty, each one on average 20km wide. I did some quick multiplication and estimated around 18 million km of coastline on this planet- probably more. This would have made a perfect home for my own people, had we been the ones lucky enough to find it first. Little wonder the Sergetti were prepared to go to war for it.
"It’s not normal land, though.” She shouted suddenly. “There's hardly any real land on Plenty at all. You get the odd volcanic crater but all these islands you see here are made by a type of plant. Do you get anything like coral where you come from?"
We don't, and I suddenly missed my own translator which probably could have provided a brief explanation from its cultural database. Much to my relief Chell actually turned down her music in order to converse at a more conversational level.
"Well, it's a bit like that. This plant builds up a kind of mineral residue, you see. It grows slowly from the seabed in a con until it gets to the surface, then the exposed bit dies off and another layer grows around it, dies off and so on. That’s why they’re all so round and flat, and why the terrain has that ring pattern. The largest island on the entire planet is eighty Ks across, and they say it's more than 200 million years old."
This education continued for over an hour, interrupted only occasionally when my tutor would turn the music up temporarily to fully appreciate what she described as a "good bit". Ever eager to increase my knowledge about the environment I would be working in, I listened carefully as she moved away from geology to provide a brief description of the local customs and quirks, a quick who’s who of prominent local personages and a rundown on some of the more conspicuous sub-cultures and ethnic Groups I could expect to encounter. She talked animatedly about the Viking cult and some friends of hers in the Idunna clan, and then went on to provide lengthy descriptions of all the best bars, hotels and markets in our destination city. Finally, she gave me details of how to get free drinks in certain Sergetti eating establishments, how to con your way into the best seats at Mossy Molasses' DrukZuzz-Jazz Joint and not only how to recognise Salzalum street-muggers, but how to convince them you're part of their gang and claim a share of the night’s takings. Although I found her conversation exhausting and her ethics questionable, I felt sure that if they ever met, she and Cane would get on well.
She stopped talking once we found ourselves approaching Primavera, Plenty's largest archipelago and primary city. We absorbed the sight of it together in silence. The air here was thick with traffic, mainly in the form of orbital shuttles like our own, queuing for landing spots on the massive floating platform that appeared to bear the city’s spaceport. Furthermore, hundreds of vessels could be seen ploughing V shapes into the waters around the main sea port, which was an artificial extension to the most eastern island. Six or seven more islands of equivalent size and a dozen or so smaller ones huddled close behind, all haphazardly tied together by a jumble of artificial causeways and wide bridges. Low-altitude airships distributed goods to rooftops while a swarm of faster planetary aircraft buzzed to and fro, skimming to a halt on the water or parking delicately on or in the high-rise architecture. Almost every scrap of available space was piled high with towers, domes and blocks in conflicting colours, most of them clearly having been designed and erected without any particular consideration for whatever lay right next to it. Hazy geometry beneath the waves indicated that a lack of dry land was no obstacle to urban growth, and I realised that I must be looking at Primavera’s Sergetti quarter. Several pressurised transit-tubes ran from the islands into the sea towards this district, providing an interface between the air and water breathing populations.
Altogether, the effect was overwhelming. The myriad construction styles and materials battling for attention were representative of a thousand cultures and eras from a hundred planets and a dozen sentient races. It was as though all of known space had been compressed into this tiny arena, where only the loudest, the pushiest and most assertive would stand a chance of ever getting noticed. Thanks to my career in Frontier Order I had travelled extensively through Commonwealth space and I used to think I’d seen. This though, this was vast and unknown and for a moment I was humbled. I felt like some rural homeworld Orro who'd lived an entire life in a remote swamp village, then suddenly thrust unprepared into the thriving, cosmopolitan distraction of the Capital.
Which wasn’t that far from the truth.
The feeling of awe soon faded into the background, and I came to the conclusion that although I was impressed by Primavera, I didn’t like it. Although undoubtedly a hugely different scale, in many respects it was just like the scrappy trading outPosts and frontier spaceports I had spent my entire career policing. Driven by commerce and industry at a rate the authorities and planners could never hope to keep up with, it had become a brash, undisciplined, anarchic junkpile of a place. I could almost sense lawlessness rising off this city like a bad smell.
And in that moment it hit me: I hate places like this. Why had I spent my entire life working in them? How had I failed for so long to realise that I am so ill-suited to my lifestyle? Now here I was, after a career dedicated to risking my life to protect cramped, tiny, noisy little colonial cesspits from themselves, I had finally been promoted. Now I would be risking my life to protect a huge, sprawling, alien, urban-colonial cesspit. Preoccupied by these questions and Chell’s abrasive music, there were dark clouds in my mind as we touched down on Plenty.
We touched down and I thanked Chell. She offered to guide me through the spaceport and into the city, but I knew I should tackle this alone. I stepped out into tropical humidity and then almost immediately into the dry, air-conditioned arrivals building. There was a lot of unnecessary waiting around before my paperwork was half-heartedly inspected. I was waved through customs without a second look and then I was out in to the spaceport’s main concourse, where alien life of every variety thronged and hollered. Pale, dour Sallegans marched imperiously ahead of their squabbling attendant Salzalum. A lumpy Drukshockan in a methane-pressurised cart argued vehemently with something whose species I couldn’t even identify over the price of something or other, while every flavour and colour of humanity pervaded throughout.
The spaceport’s signs were in a variety of Languages, none of them Cue Cappan. I asked a human- a sweating homeworlder in crisp, formal attire- for help and was directed to an information desk, where one of the locals sat in a state of comparative undress. She charged my translator with maps of the spaceport and city, smiled and pointed and I soon found myself in a taxi boat, shielded from the heat by a simple canvas canopy. I trailed two tentacles in the water, closed my eyes and tried to convince myself I was on my own homeworld. It didn’t work.
I had the taxi drop me off on Dogma Beach, according to the senior Cane’s instructions. It was mid-morning and the beach was bustling with activity. Some people running or swimming for exercise, others happy to simply lie on the hot sand and bask. A thin road ran parallel to the water, with number of broad, tree-lined avenues running away at right angles. Cane had left me a list of directions to follow, each junction described by a landmark. A metallic statue on one of the busier avenues sent me half a kilometre inland, until I spotted the glitzy restaurant with the columns of fish-filled water held up by nothing more than energy fields. I turned left and immediately right, hearing the temple of Elvis long before I saw it. Taking the second left after that, I found myself on a narrow lane that curved gently inland, terminating at a heavily vandalised park full of native trees. To the right of the park was a tower block, which the map assured me was a classic example of the Asian neo-deco architecture that had been popular with Plenty’s first colonists. It looked to me like a dilapidated, crumbling, twelve-story heap of trouble.
On the third floor I found apartment 332 and removed my helmet, using it to knock on the door. I waited two minutes without a reply and knocked again. Eventually a face appeared in a small screen to one side of the door. “Whayya want?”
As per Cane’s instructions, I said ‘Suggsy’ had sent me. There was a pause, and the door opened. A naked human opened the door and looked me up and down. “What the f#ck are you?” He had clearly just woken up and was doing a very bad job of hiding a gun behind his back.
“I’m here on business.” I said, raising myself onto tentacle-tips to make eye-contact at his own level. “Suggsy sent me.”
“You said that.” He remarked, rubbing his eyes. “Come in.” He stepped back slightly, allowing me just enough room to squeeze timidly past him. Instead I pushed through forcefully, nudging him backwards to give myself space.
He closed the door and stopped trying to hide the gun. He only took his eyes off me long enough to find a pair of shorts on a table, sniff them and pull them on. “I’ll call Suggsy, and I’ll be right with you.”
I hadn’t anticipated this. I assumed that the mention of this ‘Suggsy’ character would be enough to get this man’s trust. With one eyeball I looked around for an escape, keeping the other fixed on the man.
“Suggsy mate… yeah I know it’s early, but you should tell your friends to come round after I get up, shouldn’t you? Yeah… I dunno… Purple. Tentacles… Hey you, what’s your name?”
I debated with myself for a moment. Should I use the name on my papers? I decided against it. “Sloo.” I said.
The weapons dealer repeated this name to his friend while scratching his backside with the muzzle of his weapon.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He ended the call, and I tried to appear outwardly calm while simultaneously tensing for action.
“You want a drink?” Obviously my new friends in intelligence had predicted the call and somehow persuaded Suggsy to back me up. After fishing a drinking straw out of my bag, I accepted a small glass of something brown that tasted nothing at all like wine. Then we got down to business.
“So you’ll be looking for something Cue Cappan, I suppose. You’d probably have trouble handling weapons designed for anyone else.” He said, apparently able to recognise my species now that he’d woken up a little. He disappeared into another room and returned with a small arsenal in an open case.
“You have to understand I don’t keep a lot of cappan stuff in, but what I do got is top quality.”
He unwrapped the first gun and handed it to me.
“How about this? Groosh WavebLaster mark III, standard issue to Commonwealth police force and Frontier Order. Pulsed energy bLast, no recoil, high repeat rate. This is a very accurate weapon, mate, and reliable too- as long as you clean it every other day.”
I cleaned my own Groosh daily. I pulled the offered weapon apart with all the expertise of a lifetime’s familiarity and examined the parts. It was a copy, but not a bad one. I snapped it back together and balanced its weight on my tentacle. It felt good. However I hadn’t just relinquished my own gun to pick up another one like it. I asked what else he had. He tilted his head and made a clicking noise as he packed the WavebLaster away.
“You won’t get better than the Groosh, my friend, especially not ‘round here. No offence mate, but most Cappan weapons are pretty poor in my opinion. Too much maintenance, not enough damage. Here, try this.”
He handed me a Shlaalgrah 900, the choice of the discerning Gla boss and undoubtedly the best option after the Groosh. This guy knew his business well. “Less punch than the Groosh.” He said, “But more discrete and it holds a longer charge. Waterproof, obviously and again, good accuracy in the proper hands.” He looked at my tentacles. “Or whatever.”
We looked at a few more weapons, haggled over the price and drank another bourbon. I left the apartment block with the Shlaalgrah 900 and a half-dozen fighting blades, feeling far more confident than I had done all day. I consulted my map, asking it for the Bifrost Lodge. It was 20 minutes’ walk away. I steeled myself. It was time to get to work.
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