Moral and Orbital Decay Read online

  “Howdy,” Carl called out amiably to the first person he saw. The guy was dressed in a pocket-trench, probably hauling every screwdriver and bottle opener he owned. His snarled beard and glassy stare told Carl not to linger for conversation.

  Fortunately, old Snarl-Beard was huddling over a can of self-heating beans with a plastic fork, equally indifferent toward Carl so long as he kept a safe distance.

  This was the sort of place for people who had gotten left by society. No one with a steady income or a good family ended up down here, which is why it was the perfect place to seek out Cedric The Brown.

  It took a certain twist of gray matter to come around to a wizard’s way of thinking. As a Convocation man, Cedric would have been accustomed to the best accommodations credit could buy—whatever he wanted to eat, whenever he wanted to eat it—and access to transportation whenever he required it.

  It wasn’t as if the Convocation put out a Most Wanted list the way Earth Interstellar did. If Cedric wanted to stay in posh hotels and snort caviar, the Convocation’s credit would still be good. That was the trap.

  The guys the Convocation were bound to send after him, if Esper’s assertion that he was in Mort-style trouble proved out, would no doubt have access to the accounting records where Cedric had stayed, eaten, flown, and rented sex partners—if that was his thing. It would have been a trail of breadcrumbs right to him.

  “Hey there,” Carl called out, waving to a greasy-looking couple with dark, haunted eyes. “Looking for a friend of mine. He’s gone off his pharma and thinks he’s a wizard. Either of you seen him?”

  The woman sized him up. “Fifty.”

  A shakedown. Carl could respect that. The Core Apartments were their dregs, after all.

  Fishing out a few hardcoins, Carl kept them in a closed fist. “What’ve you got for me?”

  Licking her lips as she ogled Carl’s hand, the woman answered. “Routh and Leto’s people took him in. They live in the warehouse by the gravity stone.”

  When the woman reached for Carl’s hand, he snatched it back but didn’t put the coins away. “Where’s that?”

  “Central shaft of the station. Above the mining laser emitter columnator. Six levels up.”

  Carl blinked. “You some sort of tech?” he asked as he poured the loose handful of coins into the woman’s waiting hands.

  She smiled, showing a mouth filled with rotted teeth. “Laser tech, third class. Gathrocite exposure cost me my livelihood. The settlement only lasted me and Fenny a couple months. We should have just bought a starliner ticket back to Sol.”

  Carl made his apologies on behalf of an otherwise uncaring galaxy and headed off in search of the gravity stone. It was always nice hearing about homey touches like that, even though he knew there had to be one. Gravity stones reminded him of Mort. Maybe they reminded Cedric of his old man, too.

  Along the way, Carl passed humans and the occasional laaku in various states of dishevelment. No one came to live in the empty gaps in a space station unless they’d had lost a few stabilizing thrusters somewhere in their life. He supposed that characterization included Cedric as well.

  When maintenance signage indicated that Carl was in the right area—and that he should refrain from bringing highly sensitive technological devices beyond this point—Carl began asking around. Rather than inquiring about the wizard directly, he asked for Routh and Leto.

  “Who they to you?” a flabby-faced, sweaty man with a cough asked. He was seated, leaning against a wall under a sign that read “Authorized Personnel Only.”

  “Fenny sent me,” was all Carl gave in reply. There was a code to places like this. Who you knew meant everything. Carl hadn’t thought to get the woman’s name; likely she and Fenny were an item. One name ought to have been about as good as another.

  “Lemme go see…” Flabby-Face said, putting a hand on the floor and levering himself agonizingly to his feet.

  Some part of Carl wanted to go over and give the poor guy a hand getting up. A part he was less proud of didn’t want to risk touching him.

  While Flabby-Face was gone, Carl considered the approach he would take. Thus far, sticking pretty close to the truth had been paying off, but the temptation to hit the throttle and spin a better story scratched at Carl’s skull from the inside.

  Odds were, Cedric was staying down here either with the tacit approval of these dreg-dwellers or at least had cut some sort of deal. Smuggle some of the residents planetside, and shit-hole or no shit-hole, a terramancer like Cedric might provide them a breathable atmosphere in some cavern complex or artificial structure. They might be protective of him.

  On the other hand, if Cedric had gone loco and was holding the dregs hostage, they might be eager for someone to take him off their hands.

  Fiddling with his comm, Carl considered pulling it out and giving Amy a quick update on his situation. But comms had a weird effect on society’s outcasts. Most of them were wary of authority, and anyone checking in with a remote location had the stink of legitimacy on them, even if—as in Carl’s case—they were just checking in with their outlaw girlfriend.

  The lights went out.

  Carl’s hand went instantly for his blaster, instincts telling him that taking out the power was the prelude to an ambush. But in the darkness, there was no reassuring power indicator glowing like a beacon of ammo-based hope against the foe that approached.

  Then Carl remembered the other common cause of power outages.

  “So,” a familiar voice thundered. “You chased me to the ends of the galaxy and expected a meek sheep, prepared for the slaughter?”

  Striding down the corridor that Flabby-Face had taken was a ghost, lit in ghastly contrast by twin balls of fire cupped in hand. It was Mordecai The Brown.

  But the voice was off. Not gravelly enough. Not worn with years of carrying a hard edge and speaking words no mortal throat was meant to utter. The face was clean-shaven and smooth.

  This wasn’t Mort.

  Carl dropped the blaster and threw up his hands. “Whoa! You called us, remember?”

  Cedric paused his stalking approach. The twin fires went out, and a gentle blue glow lit the steel warren of the Core Apartments. “Carl?” His shoulders slumped. “Merlin’s ghost, you had me thinking they’d found me.”

  “This a friend of yours?” Flabby-Face asked.

  Cedric offered the man a weary nod. “Yes. My father trusted him. Now I do as well. It’s time for me to go. Thank you, Leto.”

  Carl opened his mouth, then shut it. Dammit, why did he have to keep falling for the “lemme go get the muscle” routine when he met the guy he was looking for?

  “This power failure… it gonna last long?” Leto asked.

  Shaking his head, Cedric took a long breath. “It shouldn’t. I wish you well.”

  “Thanks for the gravity,” Leto said, lifting a hand.

  “Think nothing of it,” Cedric replied. “Each of us trade what we have in abundance. For me, my magic, for you, the comforts of your home.”

  “Can we move it?” Carl asked, growing testy at the verbal hug-fest.

  “Of course,” Cedric replied. “Do you know the way back out?”

  Carl pulled out his data pad. “I will… just as soon as this thing’s working again.”

  # # #

  Without a working comm, datapad, or blaster, checking in with the Mobius wasn’t in the cards. With Cedric having an aversion to gambling, cards weren’t in the cards either. But since it was the middle of a shift change and the corridors bustled with the workers who’d be setting up a new drilling site in a few short hours, Cedric didn’t want to be out in the crush of traffic, either.

  “Fine,” Carl relented, already sick of babysitting Mort’s kid. “Since we can’t take off, let’s at least find a bite to eat.”

  They found the Vermillion Arrow Diner just off one of the concourses that dotted the station’s outer ring. It was still a hike around YF-77’s perimeter back to the ship, but at least they ha
d access to coffee and food-flavored grease in the meantime.

  “Coffee. Black,” Cedric ordered. Carl caught him by the wrist before he could raise a hand to show the Convocation sigil and put their meal on credit. “Right. Sorry,” he muttered aside to Carl.

  The waiter was a wispy-bearded teenager who probably belonged to one of the station’s older workers. “What about you, buddy?”

  “Leave the pot of black. And bring me bacon and eggs.” What was the point of visiting a diner if you ate lunch?

  As the teenage waiter departed, Cedric leaned across the table. “Thank you for this. I assume Esper relayed my message.”

  “The gist of it,” Carl replied. “Said there was some personal stuff that wasn’t meant for us. You two…?”

  Cedric scowled. “Not that it’s your concern, but no. I must surmise, then, that you don’t know about my dilemma.”

  “You’re on the you-know-what from the you-know-who,” Carl summarized, wary of the proximity of strangers’ ears all around. “I’ve always had a soft spot for people on the you-know-what.”

  The lights in the diner flickered, and a coffee machine threw a noisy spray of sparks. A general grousing rose from the patrons and waitstaff.

  “C’mon. Not the power again.”

  “On it. Calling maintenance. Grill’s still up. Not to worry everyone.”

  Cedric gave a sheepish wince. “Sorry. We can speak candidly now, at least. Yes, I’m on the run. That should be no secret to you. But the why of it is that I’m losing my grip. I should have been able to enact a simple voice-dampening effect without so much as jostling the local tech.”

  Still wary of eavesdroppers, Carl checked over both shoulders. No one seemed to be paying them any special attention. “What? You’re coming unhinged? Is that why the you-know-who are after you?”

  “No.” Cedric lowered his head and ran a hand over his face. “I’ve stumbled upon the family’s private road to ruin.”

  “You ran off the job after violating a rule?” Carl guessed. “What? Did you create a nitrous oxide atmosphere or something? Maybe conjure up some alien plant life with aphrodisiac properties? What’s it take to get a terramancer fired?”

  “Fired?” Cedric asked, scoffing aloud. “Fire is the problem, right down to the embers. Mordecai was of the Order of Prometheus. For all his claims to being a Merlin, his natural affinity was for the powers of destruction. The Prometheans are a small order but respected because of their role in maintaining the Convocation’s power base.”

  “Politics aside, I got that general gist from Mort.”

  Their coffees arrived, and the waiter left the pot per Carl’s request.

  Cedric took a sip of his, heedless of the fact it was just shy of boiling. “Nominally, I am a member of the Order of Gaia.”

  “Skip to the interesting part,” Carl advised. “Mort passed along the general theme to the Convocation’s orders. Greek gods and titans loosely associated with aspects of magic, yadda yadda yadda. When’s this orbit gonna slam into a moon?”

  “I should have been Promethean,” Cedric stated solemnly. “But with my father in disgrace, I couldn’t very well follow those smoldering footsteps. I had to study twice as hard, but I passed the exams for the Order of Gaia instead.”

  Carl sipped his coffee, taking in as much air as possible to cool the boiling stuff on its way in. He didn’t know what it was, maybe something in his manner, but people just loved telling him their life’s story. It probably had something to do with the fact that no matter their troubles, Carl usually had a worse experience to top it. People loved stepping on someone’s back to feel better about themselves, even if they didn’t realize it. Cedric wasn’t a bad guy, but if Carl had been a better one, he wouldn’t be getting the abbreviated version of some recent college grad’s memoirs.

  “When Esper contacted me to meet my father, at first I was hesitant. I’d spent my youth running from that legacy. Had Mordecai mastered his curiosity and never read that accursed book, I might have become Guardian of the Plundered Tomes myself one day. My miserable, respectable, high-paying, lonely life was all thanks to Mordecai’s weakness of resolve.”

  “Then the whole thing with Archie. I get it,” Carl said. The coffee was cooling to safer levels, and the caffeine was feeling good as it filtered into his bloodstream. “He’s still on board, you know. Not too pleased, either.”

  “I apologize. I’ll make amends. I no longer have any right to judge. I’ve broken the Convocation’s rules far worse than Archimedes ever has. At least, if his tale is true, he found himself unwittingly trapped in that prison of metallic flesh. I read that book.”

  Carl sipped. “What book?” he asked over the rim of his beige ceramic cup.

  Cedric’s eyes widened. “She never told you…”

  Shrugging and setting his coffee on the diner table, Carl stretched. “Yeah, I’ve gotten used to getting half the truth out of everyone. They’ve got secrets. I’ve got secrets. It’s made working with the scum of the galaxy easier over the years, so I don’t mind when my friends do it. So what book did you read?”

  Despite his claims of their privacy being protected, Cedric nonetheless shoved his coffee aside and leaned across the table conspiratorially. “The Tome of Bleeding Thoughts.”

  Carl blinked. “Back that one up, and swing it again. I thought Mort burned that thing.”

  “Esper made a copy.”

  Carl blinked again. His capacity for surprise was beginning to surprise even him. “How’d she make a copy of it? She would have needed to…”

  Mortania. All those nights in Mort’s quarters, supposedly training in magic. Carl had always imagined that there was more to the sudden end to that little arrangement than either of them let on. He’d always assumed that, like many relationships, theirs had shifted back to professional—only after some sort of argument or a stretching of boundaries that weren’t mutually agreed upon.

  “Wait,” Carl said after the pause Cedric allowed to linger. “But if Esper made a copy from something she’d seen in Mort’s mind, why couldn’t Mort have just made a copy himself and shipped it to the Convocation via Solar Express?”

  Figurative fires blazed in Cedric’s eyes. “Aha! Had I asked that of myself, I might not have fallen into the same trap. Only after I read it for myself did I realize the answer: Mordecai never wanted that book in Convocation hands again. It’s too dangerous. The Plundered Tomes aren’t restricted merely for the sake of decorum.”

  Carl patted Cedric on the arm and eased him back into his seat just in time for his bacon and eggs to arrive. He gave the teen waiter a thumbs up since he wasn’t sure whether Cedric’s spell would let the kid hear anything he tried to say in the way of thanks.

  “So,” Carl said through a mouthful of spongy eggs. “We get you back to the Mobius, hang tight, and hit astral the second this place ends the docking lockout. Esper’ll get you fixed up, no problem. Convocation can’t dock while the station’s moving, and the instant we get clearance, we’re gone. You’re in the clear.”

  Cedric’s mouth hung wide. His brow knit. “No. You don’t understand. They’re already here.”

  # # #

  Rai Kub always felt strange on all-human planets. All the furnishings were small. All the people were small. And the lone exceptions to the ubiquitous humanity—the occasional laaku worker—only heightened the impression.

  While the travel corridors fit a stuunji, he blocked both directions of what was clearly meant to be a bi-directional flow of pedestrians. Thus, Rai Kub found himself in an open concourse with a view of the planet and decided to harvest where he stood rather than foraging the station as a nomad.

  His environs included a Noodle-O-Rama, a Spacey Jim’s, an AllShop, and a carnal pleasure facility for humans with a tastefully euphemistic name. The shops and restaurants lined the edges of the concourse while the central area was scattered with tables, chairs, and flatvid advertising panels.

  Positioning himself near the main flow
of traffic, Rai Kub pulled out his datapad and gingerly tapped his way to a picture of Cedric The Brown. The resemblance to the departed Mordecai was striking, even when humans looked so similar to one another. The eye ridges and nasal horns matched remarkably well.

  “Excuse me. I’m looking for this human,” Rai Kub said to a woman with yellow hair and a tool kit.

  “Haven’t seen him,” she replied, barely glancing at the datapad.

  Rai Kub leaned down to greet a smallish human with data glasses. “Pardon me. I am looking for someone. He’s a wizard. Have you seen him?”

  “Wizards don’t do so good on space stations,” the smallish human replied. “I’d advise you get him out of here once the station finishes its move.”

  “That is very much my intent,” Rai Kub replied, but the smallish human was already moving on.

  Changing tactics, Rai Kub raised his voice while still trying to maintain a civil tone. “Excuse me,” he announced. “I’m missing a friend of mine. Has anyone seen a 1.9-meter tall human with hair the color of barley? He’s a wizard.”

  Two humans dressed in black exited the Spacey Jim’s carrying take-away boxes. They approached Rai Kub and guided him to a quiet spot near the entrance to the washrooms. “This wizard a friend of yours?” the one with the black beard asked.

  “A friend of a friend,” Rai Kub replied honestly. He’d never met Cedric before.

  “Does he answer to the name Cedric The Brown?” the one with the graying beard asked.

  Rai Kub’s eyes lit. “Yes! You know where I can find him?”

  “What do you think, Chester?” the black-bearded one asked his colleague.

  “He clearly doesn’t know,” Chester replied.

  “Agreed. Sorry, friend. I don’t know where to find your wizard. But I have something that might help. Close you eyes and try to envision this wizard you’re looking for.”

  “How will that help?” Rai Kub asked, genuinely curious. Human science had a great deal of insight into psychology, though not all of it applied to alien species.