Jupiter's Glory Book 4: Just Passing Through Read online

  JUPITER’S GLORY

  BOOK 4:

  JUST PASSING THROUGH

  Adam Carter

  Copyright 2018, © Adam Carter. All rights reserved. No content may be reproduced without permission of the author.

  CHAPTER ONE

  It started out as a rescue operation. I guess it still was one, although an outside observer would have been forgiven for mistaking my genius for idiocy. After all, when one sets out to rescue people, one did not usually end up chained to a wall in a somewhat clichéd dark, dank cell, listening to the steady drip of rainwater and watching rats the size of one’s arm scurry about the cold, stone floor.

  Upon reflection, even I was having a difficult time sticking to my argument that I was a genius, for the ache in my jaw attested to the fact that if it was indeed genius, it meant I was a masochist. I did not recall how many beatings I had endured – they blurred after the third – but it did not really matter. All that mattered was that I was nowhere near where I should have been, and no closer to finding the two people we’d set out to locate.

  The door to the cell opened again and feeble light collapsed in from the corridor, like a sack of dull coins spilled all over the floor. Two figures entered. The first I’d seen a few times before and knew his fists well, but the second was new; or at least new to my cell.

  The first – the one whose fists were developing an unhealthy relationship with my face – was a heavyset man with a gruff exterior and a lot of anger issues to work through. I imagined he had been disappointing to his parents, unimpressive to his teachers and unsatisfying to his girlfriends. For all I knew he was the most beloved man on all of Ganymede, but thinking bad things of him helped whenever he beat me senseless.

  It was the second figure who aroused my interest, however. She was the strong, silent type, garbed head to foot in black leather so I couldn’t even see her face. She also carried a sword, which she held in a comfortable manner with its point against the floor. She stood close to the door as the gruff man approached me.

  “Hi, Tyron,” I said. My body ached, I had not been fed all day and to get water I had been forced to lick it from the walls; but I refused to lose my sense of humour. “We set for another round already?”

  “Shut it, Rosalita.”

  “I thought you wanted me to talk?”

  “I want you to tell me what I want to know,” he said as he slowly, purposefully, wrapped a bandage round and round his knuckles. “I don’t want you chattering on like some old woman.”

  “I have an idea. How about you let me go and I promise to eventually turn into an old woman?”

  As humour went, it wasn’t very funny, but under the circumstances I was hardly thinking straight.

  His fist jabbed me once in the belly and I made a strange sound which was a mixture of hacking and inhaling. He stepped away with a grunt. “Any more jokes?” he asked.

  “No,” I wheezed. “I’m good. Who’s the bodyguard?”

  “That’s my bodyguard.”

  “Great answer.” I took a deep breath in an effort to restore some blood flow to my veins. With my arms at an angle and my wrists chained above my head, my blood circulation was not too good, and the lack of food wasn’t helping any, either. “Hi, mysterious bodyguard.”

  The bodyguard ignored me.

  “How about some answers this time?” Tyron asked. “So far all you’ve told me is your name, and I’m not sure whether to believe that.”

  “Why would I lie about my name?”

  “Do you have a surname?”

  “Probably. Most people do.”

  He pulled back his fist and I winced, preparing myself for the blow, but it did not come. Instead he resumed pacing, which bought me a reprieve of a few more moments.

  “All right, already,” I said, trying not to look at his silent, imposing bodyguard. Her presence had somewhat changed my attitude and I felt like talking for a while. If I was giving him information, even if it was useless information, at least he wouldn’t be punching me. “Rosalita. That’s my name, like I told you. I have short but stylish black hair which I like to keep a little spiky, and a hard stare perfected during my time working as a barmaid. I used to be a dust miner on the halo rings of Jupiter. You know how much dust miners make? Not a lot, but it’s a living. Trouble is, you take too much dust from the halo rings, sooner or later there won’t be any more halo rings, which means anyone who wants to go see rings around a planet are going to have to pop over to the next system. Saturn already gets a lot of attention, and too many dust miners around Jupiter could ruin our entire tourist trade. So, I mined whatever I was told to mine and the firm I worked for turned out to be less than honest about how much I was supposed to be taking. When I realised I was there illegally and that I could be spending the rest of my natural in prison, I made a run for it. Hardly my fault, but if you stick a knife in someone they’re not going to let you off with a slap on the wrist just because you …”

  “Would you shut the hell up? I never asked for your life story.”

  I shut the hell up, glanced to the silent bodyguard (even though I was still trying very hard not to) and waited for Tyron to hit me again. He was too busy pacing to do that, and running his hand through his hair. I was under the impression I had given him a headache, which was at the same time fantastic and unnerving, since it likely meant he was going to hit me harder from then on.

  “This is why I don’t talk to my wife any more,” he said, seemingly to himself. “And my daughters. They’re all women, you know, and women never know when to shut up.”

  “Wow,” I said. “You really have issues, Tyron. You seeing a psychiatrist?”

  “Every Thursday. She says I’m making progress, but she’s a woman so what does she know? Why am I telling you about my psychiatrist?”

  “Because I’m interested.”

  “You’re not interested.”

  “No, I’m not interested. Any chance of some water? Licking walls is degrading.”

  “You get some water when I get some answers. You came here for the shipment and I want the name of the man who sent you.”

  “Why do you assume it was a man?”

  “What?”

  “You should bring that up at your next session, the way you automatically assume …”

  At that point he hit me. Hard. I guess I should have been thankful it had taken him that long to land the second blow, but my reeling senses and the metallic coppery taste to my mouth did not lend me much cause to be thankful for anything. I glowered at the silent bodyguard, who remained annoyingly silent throughout.

  “A name,” Tyron said.

  “I didn’t come for your drugs, Tyron,” I said. “I didn’t even know you had any drugs in the shipment. I just stowed away because it was a handy way to get to Ganymede.”

  “Ganymede’s a huge moon, Rosalita. You could have just flown in.”

  “I don’t have a vehicle.”

  “Never heard of public transportation?”

  “Did I mention I’m a criminal?”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You don’t believe I’m an illegal dust miner on the run from the law?”

  “No. That’s a stupid story.”

  I felt hurt, since it was actually true. I also felt hurt because he had punched me in the face, and I was just waiting for him to do it again.

  “All right,” he said, “let’s assume I believe your story. Why would you want to sneak into Ganymede? If you’re on the run, surely you’d be avoiding all the main moons. You’d be hiding out somewhere on the fringes of the Jupiter system.”

  “That would make sense,” I admitted. “But I’
m sort of here looking for something.”

  “Looking for what?”

  “Oh, just one or two things I lost.”

  “What things?”

  “You know, things I lost.”

  He hit me again. This time it was so hard I screamed, and I don’t like screaming for anything. The next few seconds are still a haze but I remember barking at him, cursing his mother’s name (which, being misogynistic, he probably agreed with) and likely saying one or two other things. My head began to pound and I felt my brain swimming. I remember seeing a demonstration one time where a scientist put a sponge in a bowl of water and shook it, showing what it was like to suffer head trauma. That scene was all I could think about in that moment and it did not fill me with confidence, only nausea.

  Tyron grabbed me by my throat and forced my head up so he could look me in the eyes. His fury was unchecked and I could see the very real possibility he was about to kill me. “Now you listen here, Rosalita. My employers don’t like anything they deem as a threat to their operation. When stowaways turn up in the shipments I’m responsible for, my employers come down on me. Right now they’re sharpening their knives and readying the cooking pot, so I don’t have anything to lose here. They’re targeting me, so I’m targeting you. If you want to give me a name, maybe the both of us can get out of this in one piece.”

  “Oh, just hit him already.”

  Tyron frowned. “Hit who?”

  “I wasn’t talking to you, Tyron.”

  He half-turned, but was too slow, for the silent bodyguard had slammed him across the face with pommel of her sword. Tyron fell hard against the wall, dazed, with blood streaming from his nose.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” the not-so-silent bodyguard said, dropping her sword and raising her hands to her concealed mouth. “I didn’t mean to hit you that hard.”

  “Stop apologising and hit him again,” I said. “Quick, he’s getting up.”

  The bodyguard took a tentative step towards him but darted back before landing a blow. By this point Tyron’s brain was beginning to clear and I could see this ending very badly for us both.

  “Cass, do it!”

  The bodyguard punched him in the face and Tyron went down again. Shaking her hand, she turned her attention to my bonds. “How do people punch each other?” she asked as she stopped untying me so she could rub at her knuckles. “I think I broke something.”

  “Cass, untie me.”

  “I think I need to get an icepack.”

  “Cass, the ropes.”

  “And he didn’t seem like such a bad man.”

  “Cass!”

  “Stop yelling. This is a new experience for me.”

  I could see she was close to tears, perhaps even close to a mental breakdown, and if that happened I was never getting free. Gritting my teeth, I said, “Sorry. Now, would you please untie me?”

  “Oh, sure.”

  I did not say anything while she did that and once I was free I rubbed circulation back into my wrists. It’s amazing how strange your arms feel when there’s finally blood rushing back into them. Then I noticed my companion was doing something weird. “Cass, what are you doing?”

  “Making him comfortable.”

  “He was about to kill me.”

  “I’m sure he was just bluffing.”

  “He kept hitting me. Why didn’t you act sooner, by the way? You know, not that I don’t like being tied up and beaten by strange men or anything.”

  “You do?” she asked a little strangely.

  “No, that was sarcasm.”

  “Oh. Sorry. I just don’t know you very well.”

  “You don’t need to know me very well to … What kind of woman likes to be tied up and beaten?”

  “I’ve been learning a lot of things since leaving home.” She shuddered. “Life is a scary place.”

  Cassiel was odd, to say the least. Apparently she was from Themisto, which is a moon so small that it’s formed exclusively of one religion. Everyone on the entire moon conceals their skin so that all can be treated equally, regardless of sex, colour or age. I had never been certain of Cassiel’s age but would have pegged her to be around eighteen, although her naiveté made her seem even younger. Cooped up on one world her entire life, she was only now beginning to discover the horrors that lurked on the other moons of Jupiter.

  “You still haven’t answered my question,” I said. “I’ve been here for days and now you suddenly turn up. Why didn’t you stop him hitting me?”

  “I thought you were interrogating him.”

  “You thought I was …? Do you even understand the concept of interrogation? If he’s hitting me, he’s the one asking the questions.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, sniffing. I was suddenly conscious I may have been about to lose her all over again. “I just don’t like being in this place. I don’t know how to act in a den of vice.”

  “A den of vice?”

  “We stowed away with all the drugs and I don’t know what drugs are but they must be bad because that man was beating you.”

  “You don’t know what drugs are?”

  “Are they like sugar? They look like sugar.”

  “They’re not sugar. You honestly think drugs are sugar?”

  “Are they a bit like sugar?”

  “What? No. Try putting some on your boiled eggs and you’ll find they’re nothing like sugar.”

  “Why would I put sugar on my boiled eggs?”

  “Why wouldn’t you?”

  My circulation was getting back to normal so I concentrated on trying to think straight. My first coherent thought was to wonder why I was having a bizarre conversation about drugs as an alternative to sugar.

  “We need to get out of here,” I said. “Check Tyron for keys.”

  “The door’s not locked.”

  “Keys for a vehicle. We’re not walking out of here if we can drive.”

  “Wouldn’t it be stealthier to walk?”

  “Sure, but when they start shooting at us I’d prefer to have some speed on our side. Oh, forget it, I’ll do it.” I quickly went through Tyron’s pockets. He began to stir so I hit him. I’m not ordinarily a violent woman but it felt good to knock him senseless. I also found some keys and judging by their shape I figured they were for some sort of motorbike. “What’s it like out there?” I asked.

  “Out where?”

  “I know I’ve said this once or twice already, but I’ve been locked away in this room for days. You’ve been outside this room, so tell me there’s a way out.”

  “There’s a front door, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Are you actually trying to wind me up?”

  “I’m sorry,” she wailed, holding her head in her hands as she bawled. “I’m just no good at this.”

  It was fast becoming clear to me that Cassiel was not good at anything, but since she was my only ally I thought it would be somewhat stupid to alienate her. Abandoning her in the cell was mildly appealing, but I would have felt bad about it afterwards. “Stick with me,” I said, “and we’ll be fine.”

  She sniffled, but appeared a little reassured by my words. To be honest, my main concern was that we’d be sneaking around and she’d start crying again and give away our position.

  Walking from the cell, I found myself in a corridor with peeling paint and a strange odour I could not quite place. Following the corridor, we arrived at a doorway, through which there was a large room the size of an aircraft hangar. I would not have described it as a warehouse exactly, but certainly there were shelving units and hundreds of boxes piled up. There were even a few forklift trucks parked in the room, indicating the method used to move the boxes. The large room was fairly dark but I could see and hear at least a dozen people; nor did I doubt there were more. Scanning the area as quickly as I could, I noticed some smaller vehicles off to the side, including several motorbikes. Of course, I had no idea which was Tyron’s, but so long as we could get around to them unnoticed we should not have had a pro
blem.

  “Camera,” I whispered to Cassiel, who silently handed me something. The camera was small and she had managed to conceal it on her belt. No one had tried to search her and apparently everyone had accepted her story that she had come with the shipment to guard it. The camera was something I had bought for a holiday several years earlier and it had come in handy on numerous occasions. I snapped away with it for some moments and by the time I was done, I had all the shots I needed.

  “We’re not going to make it,” Cassiel whispered from where she was leaning over me.

  “We haven’t even tried yet,” I replied, putting away my camera.

  “We’re still not going to make it.”

  “You’re such a ray of sunshine. No wonder Gordon loves you.”

  “Gordon loves me?”

  There was hope to her voice, and more than a little glee. It was the first time since the cell that she had stopped crying over the bad situation we were in.

  “Gordon?” I asked. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously what?”

  “You and Gordon?”

  “There is no me and Gordon.”

  I blame the punches to the head, but it did take me a few moments to make some sense of all of that. “Cass, you’re telling me you have a thing for Gordon and he doesn’t know?”

  “My thing has nothing to do with you.”

  “Just keep your thing to yourself. Gordon’s in love with Iris. You did notice that, yeah?”

  “Of course I noticed that,” she snapped. “I’m not an idiot.”

  I decided to leave the conversation there. I’ve never been in love, not for more than one night anyway, and wasn’t about to tell a teenaged girl that what she was feeling was likely just infatuation. Still, if Iris should find out how Cassiel felt, I could imagine their lives would become somewhat awkward. I did not live with these people, I was just passing through. I happened to be around when Gordon and Iris needed my help so I offered to do what I could. That Cassiel should accompany me had seemed like a good idea at the time, but I had since come to regret the decision.

  “Are we going to stand here all day?” Cassiel asked.