Free Pelquin's Comet by Ian Whates Page A

delay them. This was New Sparta, where order was paramount and any disruption stamped down on mercilessly. Local security would already be on the way. The first thing they’d do was impound the ship and lock everything down until the situation was clarified. The Comet and her crew would be stuck here for a long time while red tape coiled around them and questions and suspicion crystallised in the blink of an eye. Extricating ship and crew from the resultant quagmire of bureaucracy could take months.
    So it was now or never. And yet… and yet , wouldn’t this be exactly how a shrewd enemy might expect Pelquin to react? Was Drake missing something here?
    He dismissed the thought; there was too little evidence from which to draw a conclusion. Getting the ship off world was his priority here, or First Solar would never see a return on their investment.
    “You were a witness,” Pelquin said. “If questions are asked later, you can confirm that we were attacked and I took us up for the safety of the ship and crew.”
    Drake hesitated. First Solar couldn’t be seen to be involved in anything illegal, but up to this point he could claim to have been no more than an innocent bystander swept up in events beyond his control. Letting things continue meant stretching his remit to the limit, but the alternative was to close things down now and lose the chance of securing a significant Elder cache. The potential reward more than justified the risk.
    None the less, he chose his words carefully when replying. “I’m only here to safeguard the bank’s investment, Captain, but I’ll do what I can should it ever prove necessary.”
    An empty promise, one which sounded supportive without committing him to anything, but it was evidently enough to satisfy Pelquin, who acknowledged the comment with a curt nod.
     
    Falyn de Souza stared out the window as the world sped past. All those insignificant people scurrying around in pursuit of whatever their inconsequential lives demanded. They were no more than blurs at this speed, an impression of outline, a smudge of colour – a surrealist’s painting that suggested shape rather than defining it and left imagination to fill in the rest – though in this instance each was replaced by the next before his mind could begin to fill in any detail, even had he felt inclined to do so.
    The buildings though, they were a different breed entirely. Solid, resolute, meant to last, housing corporate entities which the scurrying folk were slaved to feed and serve. Here beat the financial heart of humanity’s star-spanning society, and within these towering edifices dwelt the minds responsible for shaping and redefining humankind’s destiny.
    De Souza relished these visits to New Sparta, loved the decadence of the hotel suites his position afforded him and loved rubbing shoulders with the corporate bigwigs even more, as if some of their glitter and success might inadvertently rub off on him. Oh, he knew that Jossyren were just one of many corporations here on New Sparta, whatever standing the company commanded out in the fringe worlds, but he felt an affinity with the movers and shakers, with the whole ethos of the place. He didn’t doubt that one day he would have an office in one of the ostentatious buildings that flashed past him as the car sped through the city centre. Perhaps with Jossyren perhaps with somebody else – loyalty to an employer only stretched so far – but, one way or another, he would be here. It was his destiny.
    He’d been neglecting his guest, ignoring the man sitting beside him in the car’s plush upholstery for long enough. Deliberately so, but he judged the moment now right to turn his attention away from the wider world.
    “Well?” he asked.
    “I told you, there was nothing I could do.”
    If de Souza had expected the man to feel discomfited by being ignored for such a protracted length of time, he was disappointed. Archer seemed completely at ease, as if it were only