Jupiter's Glory Book 4 Page 8

  “Cass, just stop,” I said. “Hilda … may I call you Hilda?”

  “You can call me whatever you please, Rosalita.”

  “Hilda, we need to find Iris and Gordon. Do you know where they are?”

  “No.”

  “Great. Stands to reason they didn’t tell you where they were going.”

  “I know where they were going, just not where they are right now.”

  I narrowed my eyes as she giggled again. “You’re screwing with me,” I said.

  “Just a little computer programme/robot humour. Artificial life forms are expected to be literal, after all.”

  “I thought artificial intelligence was abandoned years ago,” I said. “You know, except for parking meters. Who hasn’t lost an argument to an artificial intelligence in a parking meter?” When no one said anything, I mumbled, “Fine; just me, then.”

  “Hilda,” Cassiel said, “where were they going?”

  “They were keeping a low profile while they tried to get off-world. They took everything they needed from me and wanted to beat a hasty exit.”

  “They took information from you?” I asked.

  “Of course. Securitarn scientists are the best. They implanted a massive amount of information in Arowana’s brain, but nothing regarding themselves. Imagine how different Frankenstein would have been had the doctor not allowed the fiend the free will to murder his entire family?”

  “Uh, Hilda,” I said, “Frankenstein wasn’t real.”

  She blinked, just to wind me up. I got the message: we’re all as real as we believe ourselves to be.

  “How were they leaving Ganymede?” I asked.

  “They intended to leave via the main spaceport. There are so many people in that area it was their intention to stow away.”

  “We might still be able to catch them,” I said, rubbing my chin. “Did they say anything else we might be able to use?”

  “They did not as such say any of this,” Myers replied cautiously. “I gleaned most of it through inflection and reading between the lines. Plus,” she added, lowering her voice, “they whispered and I pretended I couldn’t hear them.”

  “That’s sneaky.”

  “I know. It’s what makes me human.”

  “So what else did you overhear?” I asked.

  “They’ve decided to hide themselves in a police cruiser shipping out to one of Ganymede’s space stations. From there they intend to head farther into space, back to wherever it is they’ve been hiding all this time.”

  So they weren’t stupid enough to have let Myers know about Jupiter’s Glory. At least that was something.

  “Pleasure meeting you, Hilda,” I said as I moved back to the lift.

  “Feel free to visit. Have a nice day.”

  Leaving that building made me feel a little lighter. Being so close to Securitarn was bad enough, but dealing with that creepy half-woman was obscene. And, to think, Securitarn had created her (employed her?) to spin half-truths to the media. What would the complaints bodies say if they knew Securitarn had an artificial woman lying on their behalf?

  That was not, of course, why we were there. Cassiel and I had yet another trail of breadcrumbs to follow. It was becoming monotonous, yet I finally felt we were at last starting to get somewhere.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Stowing away on a police cruiser was so beyond stupid that I could not believe Arowana and Hawthorn would even consider it. As we arrived at the spaceport, however, we asked around and discovered that there was indeed such a cruiser headed up to one of the orbital space stations. Cassiel had a little trouble getting through airport security with her sword, but since we were not booked on any flights they decided it would be all right. It was the worst show of logic I’d ever seen and I for one was quite glad we were not booked on any flights if that was their attitude.

  “If we try to sneak aboard,” Cassiel said, “we’ll just blow their cover. I’m assuming they’re already inside, anyway.”

  I watched the cruiser. It was fairly large and fat, your typical troop carrier, and there were people loading goods or else moving onto the craft. It was restocking supplies for the space station as well as troops, but the crates they were loading were far too small to fit the two of us inside. However we were going to get on board, we were going to have to be very clever indeed.

  “If they got inside,” I said, not taking my eyes from the cruiser as I tried and failed to figure out their work patterns, “then it means we can, too.”

  “You’re far too optimistic, Roz.”

  “And you’re far too young to be such a defeatist. Chin up, Cass; we’re not dead yet.”

  The easiest thing to do would be to obtain uniforms and just walk on board, but since that would have involved assault on police officers it was something I discarded as soon as I thought of it. Disguising Cassiel was a must, however, and at the very least we needed to find her a coat or something. Why I had allowed her to come with me to Ganymede dressed in that stupid form-fitting black suit I’ll never know. Themistonians are not known for leaving their little moon, but there was nothing set in concrete about what they had to wear, just as long as there was a lot of it.

  “We could climb into a crate,” Cassiel said excitedly. “Or maybe knock some officers over the head and …”

  “You’re about two minutes behind my thoughts, Cass. Nope, what we need is a distraction.”

  “A distraction?”

  “It’s just occurred to me that we don’t need to hide ourselves on that cruiser.”

  “We don’t?”

  “No. If we go on there we’ll end up in orbit, trapped in a tin can police station and running around endless corridors until they arrest us. Iris and Gordon are on that cruiser, but they don’t know we’re here. All we have to do is make them see that we are and then get them off.”

  “What good will that do?”

  “The four of us will be together and we can figure another way off this world.”

  “I wonder what happened to the Bunnyhop.”

  “Bunnyhop?”

  “The Bunnyhop Express. It’s the shuttle the two of them came to Ganymede in.”

  It was not the first time I had heard the name, but I had always assumed someone was having a joke with me, since it was the most ridiculous name anyone could have given to a shuttle. For the sake of decency, I rather hoped the Bunnyhop Express had been given a decent funeral.

  “Never mind the shuttle,” I said. “We need a distraction and you’re it.”

  “Why do I have to be the distraction?” she whined.

  “Because you have a weapon and you’re dressed funny. Just wave your sword around a bit, shout something obscene and tell them you don’t respect their authority.”

  “I can’t shout something obscene.”

  I closed my eyes and counted to five. I would have gone further but we didn’t have the time. “Cass, would you please stop playing the sweet and innocent card with me? You may have come from a backwards moon, but you’re eighteen. I was eighteen once, I know precisely the way eighteen-year-olds think.”

  “And how do I think?”

  “Tell me whenever you picture Gordon there’s nothing obscene there.”

  She said nothing and I did not have to see her face to know it was red. Either through blushing or anger, I had no idea; but either would have been good for what I needed from her.

  Walking away from me, Cassiel drew her sword. At first I was pleased I had achieved a reaction from her; then I realised she was putting the plan into operation already, that she was attacking the police even before I had got myself into position.

  “Cass,” I hissed. “Cass, get back here.”

  Again she ignored me. I should have been paying more attention myself to what I had been saying, for if there was one thing I distinctly remember about being an eighteen-year-old it’s that I never liked other people discussing my emotions.

  “Hey, pigs,” Cassiel was shouting as she whirled her sword abou
t. “Come get some slop.”

  It was perhaps not the most elegant of taunts, made even worse by the fact she dropped her sword and squealed as it almost stabbed through her foot, but as distractions went it was certainly ballsy. She attracted attention not only from the police but from everyone else in the area. Civilians screamed and fled in panic, which forced officers onto crowd control even as others moved to intercept Cassiel. I could not help but be impressed, but I was not supposed to be standing there watching her.

  Keeping low, I snaked my way through the crowds running in every direction and found myself close to the cruiser’s entrance. As with most cruisers, the back was open as though someone intended to drive a tank through the door. It was the easiest way to load such craft, with a lowered ramp and the door raised and pointing to the heavens. There were two officers hanging around this area, for they had not been foolish enough to abandon the entire cruiser, and I struggled to work out how I was going to get through them.

  Thinking quickly, I tore a strip off my trouser leg and wrapped it about my arm. It would have been much easier to fool the officers if I could cut myself with something, but Cassiel was the one with the sword and I generally did not walk around with a knife in my belt. Staggering, feigning injury, I held my crudely bandaged arm as though I was bleeding to death and hobbled over to the cruiser.

  The officers saw me and one pointed while the other shouted. I increased my speed, for I did not want them intercepting me before I could reach the craft, and I fell into the closest one, allowing my legs to buckle so he would have to support me. He was dressed in the same brown and black gear of all the officers in this area, and wore a thick black helmet with a gold visor across his eyes.

  “Ma’am,” he said as he struggled to get me back to my feet. “Ma’am, you can’t die here, we have an incident.”

  “Well excuse me if I bleed to death on your uniform.”

  “Tom, what are you doing?” the other officer said, astounded and accusatory all at the same time. “Leave that woman alone.”

  “Jill, she fell into me. I can’t help …”

  “You can’t help where you put your hands?”

  “My hands? No, I think she’s dying.”

  “She can’t die there.”

  “I told her that already.”

  “And she’s still doing it?”

  “What do you want me to do, arrest her?”

  “I want you to get your hands off her. But then I wanted you to get your hands off Ruth as well, and we both know how that went.”

  “Again with Ruth.”

  “You’re again with Ruth?”

  “No, I meant you’re harping on about Ruth again.”

  “So you’re still seeing her?”

  “What? No.”

  “Then why are you talking about her?”

  “You brought her up.”

  “I think you’ll find …”

  I coughed as loudly and yet as feebly as I could. Walking into anyone’s domestic has never appealed to me, but when I had every chance of being arrested or beaten up or something I certainly didn’t have the time for it.

  “She’s still alive,” Tom said. “I should get her some help.”

  “Sure. Abandon your post to go off with another woman. You have a history of that, you know. What was her name? Sarah?”

  “Sara.”

  “Oh, excuse me if I dropped a letter,” Jill said icily.

  “We’re not going down that road again.”

  “No? Was that what she said?”

  “Pardon me,” I interrupted, “but could I please crawl away and die somewhere?”

  “Feel free,” Jill said.

  “Don’t mind me.”

  I crawled away, leaving the two officers to continue their argument. Since they weren’t paying me much attention they did not notice the direction in which I was going, which was fine for me since it meant I could make my way directly into the back of the cruiser.

  It was fairly dark inside and the whole place was filled with boxes, which meant they were transporting goods rather than personnel to the space station. I had a quick look around but could not see anyone hiding anywhere. “Psst,” I said, the first and only time I’m ever going to actually say that word. “Anyone around?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  I looked up. There was an officer standing above me, garbed in the black and brown uniform of a police officer, complete with black helmet and gold visor. All I could see of his face was the stern set of his jaw. “Oh,” I said, “hi there, sir. I was just crawling in here to die. Hope you don’t mind.”

  He stared at me with the intensity of my old history teacher when I answered the question ‘How many wives did King Henry VIII have?’ with the answer ‘Fifty-four, but most of their husbands never found out.’

  “Maybe I should leave,” I suggested meekly.

  “Is that Cassiel outside?” he asked.

  “Cassiel? I don’t know any Cassiel.”

  “Roz, is that Cassiel?”

  And then it clicked. “Gordon?”

  “Gordon,” a female officer said, coming to join us. So far as I could see, they were the only ones in the cruiser. “Roz, what are you doing here?”

  “I asked her that,” Gordon said. “She didn’t answer me, either.”

  The garbed female officer (whom I assumed to be Iris) inclined her head as though listening to something. “Is that Cassiel outside?”

  “You’re alive,” I said, not sure whether I should fling myself into their arms. I settled on going for a fist bump, but neither was interested so I withdrew it.

  “Of course we’re alive,” Gordon said. “We’ve always been alive.”

  “How did you get the uniforms?”

  “Clonked a couple of officers over the head and stole their clothes.”

  “That’s … assault on police officers.”

  Gordon shrugged. “They didn’t see us.”

  “That doesn’t make it legal.”

  “No, but it does make it not our problem.”

  I shook my head, trying to work out what was going on here. “We came to rescue you.”

  “Why?” Iris asked. “We don’t need rescuing.”

  “You didn’t come back to the Glory.”

  “We got sidetracked,” Gordon said. “We were coming back, eventually.”

  “We were worried.”

  “How sweet.”

  “Look,” Iris said, “whatever’s happened has happened. They’re here now, and we have to deal with it. Is it just you and Cassiel?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Gordon, the two of us have to go get her out of here. Rosalita, make a run for it and meet us somewhere.”

  “We’re not stealing the cruiser?”

  “We were never stealing the cruiser.”

  “Then why are you here, dressed as police?”

  “This is a trap,” Gordon said. “We infiltrated Securitarn and took over one of their programmes. She’s told Securitarn we’re headed for this cruiser, although she doesn’t realise we wanted her to overhear us say that.”

  “So Securitarn will attack the police,” I said, “and get themselves in trouble.”

  “And cause enough of a distraction,” Gordon said, “for us to get away. We took the uniforms just to make sure they didn’t raise ship before Securitarn got here.”

  “This is lovely,” Iris said, “but could we get on with things? Our plan’s gone south and we’re standing here chatting.”

  I knew we had royally messed up, but at least Gordon was good enough not to say as much to my face.

  “I’m going after Cass,” Gordon said. “Roz, think of somewhere for us all to meet up. Iris, it’s probably best you try to keep this cruiser on the ground.”

  “Forget the Securitarn-attacking-the-police angle,” Iris said. “And why are you going after Cassiel alone? Why are you playing the hero?”

  “Sorry,” I said, “but I had enough of this from thos
e two officers outside, I could do without a repeat from you. There’s a hotel on Davey Street. Twelfth floor. We’ll meet there.”

  “What name are you booked in under?” Iris asked.

  “Rosalita.”

  “Well that’s security-minded of you.”

  “I’m starting to regret coming to rescue you.”

  “You and me both,” Iris said.

  “Ladies,” Gordon cut in, “could we please concentrate on Cassiel being hounded by the police?”

  Iris snorted, but she would never abandon a friend. I could not understand where her jealousy came from, for although I had known these people only a short while I had never seen any indication that Gordon was interested in anyone else. “Roz,” she said, “get to that hotel. We’ll bring Cass.”

  I did not argue, for that would only have caused Cassiel problems. As I scurried from the area it was with the horrible feeling that we never should have come to Ganymede in the first place.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I’ve always tried to live my life without caring about anyone or anything. It’s an attitude which has served me well for so many years, and as I lay on the lumpy hotel mattress, staring up at the creaking ceiling fan, I wished I could go back to it. I never meant to care about anyone, mainly because caring about people never got me anywhere in life; but I still tended to do it every so often anyway. It was like falling in love, which (despite what I said before) I’ll admit I’ve done once or twice. I’m struck with an arrow, I act like a fool for a few weeks; then I get over it and I’m left wondering what the hell I thought I was playing at.

  By that point, of course, it was all over. I had gone to Ganymede to rescue Iris and Gordon and it turned out they hadn’t needed rescuing. They were fine, Cassiel was with them, so there was no reason for me to hang around any more. I had done my bit, which meant I could just fade into the sunset, or at least what passed for a sunset in Rinden. I wasn’t a part of their little crew, I didn’t want to be initiated, and now that I knew everyone was safe I could just leave.

  So why then was I waiting for them back at the hotel? Why had I returned to the one place to which the police would know to search, assuming of course the police were even looking for me?