McCade's Bounty Read online

  As before the king's advisor, or gofer, whichever he was, wore a long orange robe and looked somewhat fragile. But appearances can be deceiving as Murd demonstrated over the next few days.

  It took a full day to reach the coast and the first slave market. Already tired from his activities in Durn, the trip sapped even more of McCade's energy and left him drained.

  Not Murd though, when they arrived at the slave market he was as spry as ever, busy throwing his weight around and generally pissing everyone off.

  McCade didn't mind though since Murd's efforts were in his behalf and did a great deal to get things moving.

  Though a different slave market from the one McCade had experienced some years earlier, it was still quite similar.

  Their all-terrain vehicle had no top. As a result McCade was able to smell the slave market long before they actually arrived.

  It was horrible. The unbelievable stench that goes with open sewers and insufficient drainage, but something more as well, something part smell and part emotion.

  A feeling of misery, of fear, of hopelessness. It made McCade sick to his stomach.

  Then they rounded a bend and saw the stockade made of vertical logs. There were enormous gates that, with the Lakorian tendency to combine old with new, whirred open to let their vehicle pass.

  Once inside the vehicle was swamped by a small army of functionaries all vying for the privilege of kissing Murd's ancient rear end.

  Ignoring the mob McCade, Rico, and Phil got out of the vehicle and looked around. There was a large expanse of mud at the center of the market, an awning-covered platform where slaves were bought and sold, and rows of enclosed pens where they were housed.

  Having spent some time in similar accommodations McCade knew they had dirt floors, a single water tap, and an open sewer that ran along one wall.

  The thought that Molly might be locked inside one of those pens made his heart ache.

  He turned toward the knot of gesticulating Lakorians. "Murd . . . tell them to bring out the children . . . and to do it now."

  Murd, who was enjoying all the attention, considered telling the arrogant human to sit on something pointy but changed his mind. Yes, there was Lif to consider, but more than that the human himself. He had an obvious propensity for violence this human did, and seemed quite agitated.

  Murd forced himself to perform a polite bow and issued a long string of orders.

  Thirty minutes later the three humans sat and watched one of the most horrible sights they'd ever seen.

  The slave market's entire population of human children, some thirty-three in all, were paraded by for their inspection. Little boys and girls, with bony, underfed bodies and hopeless expressions.

  Under normal circumstances an auctioneer would be haranguing the audience about the children's virtues, extolling their sexual attractiveness, and reminding them that human fingers are extremely nimble as compared to the appendages found on many other sentient beings.

  But this was different. The children trudged across the platform in weary silence, looking neither right nor left, numb to what happened around them.

  All three of the men searched for familiar features, hoping, praying to see one or more familiar faces, but none of the children was from Alice.

  When the last child had passed the men sat staring at the emptiness in front of them. McCade wanted desperately to buy the children, or simply take them, destroying anyone or anything who got in the way, but knew that was impossible. The three of them had neither the money nor the brute strength to get the job done. No, they must steel themselves against what they saw, and continue the search.

  McCade looked at Rico and Phil. Rico had tears glistening on his beard, and Phil's lips were pulled back in a rictus of hate, durasteel teeth almost completely bared.

  Murd cleared his throat. "Well, sire? Were any of the cubs yours?"

  McCade stood. "No. Take us to the next market."

  It was three days and two slave markets later before they found the children.

  This time there was an actual auction taking place on the main platform, so they were seated inside a striped tent, watching a line of pathetic children straggle past.

  Later it was hard to say who saw who first, but McCade heard Phil yell "Mary!" and head a child say "Citizen McCade!" almost simultaneously.

  Then there was total pandemonium as twenty-six of the twenty-eight children crowded around the three men, crying and talking all at the same time.

  His heart in his throat McCade hugged little girl after little girl, calling those he knew by name, using "sweetheart" on all the rest.

  Some of the girls were orphans and didn't know it yet, others would be reunited with anxious parents, but all would end up safe and sound on Alice.

  After the first few frantic seconds McCade knew the truth. Molly wasn't there. A wave of grief rolled over him submerging the joy he'd known moments before. Molly was still out there somewhere, waiting for him, or . . .

  McCade grabbed the nearest girl, a child named Cindy, and stared into her eyes so intensely that she started to cry. "Molly? Where's Molly McCade? What happened to my daughter?"

  The words jerked their way out along with the tears. "Sshee's sstill on the sship."

  McCade felt a wave of relief. Alive then. There was hope. McCade pulled Cindy to his chest, and as he apologized for scaring her, he saw something awful over her shoulder.

  Two little boys had been brought in along with the girls, the little boys he'd never seen before, but were being led away by a Lakorian guard.

  McCade stood up. "Wait! Bring those boys back! Look, Rico! It's John, and his brother Paul!"

  Rico looked up from the little girl who was asking about her mother. "Huh? John and Paul?"

  Then Rico saw McCade's expression. "Oh, yeah! John and Paul! Hey, boys, don'tcha recognize Uncle Rico? Come over here?"

  The younger boy looked momentarily confused, but the older boy put on a happy expression and dragged the little boy with him. "Uncle Rico, sure, I didn't recognize you with the beard!"

  McCade smiled in spite of himself. The boy was smart. He'd do well on Alice. They all would.

  Ten

  Molly waited patiently for the other girls to fall asleep. The dim glow provided by two light switches was enough to see by.

  Shortly after the other children had been loaded aboard the shuttle and taken dirtside, the twenty or so remaining girls were removed from the hold and assigned to adjoining compartments. It was a tight fit, but at least they had real bunks and adequate toilet facilities.

  Molly still felt certain that she would've been better off on the surface of Lakor, but Raz had kept her aboard, so that was that.

  Determined to escape, or at least pave the way, Molly had conceived a plan. A plan that relied on her increased freedom of movement.

  Although significant portions of the ship were still off-limits, the girls were now permitted to roam through the rest.

  Many of the girls saw their new quarters, and lack of confinement, as a change of heart by the pirates and said so during whispered conversations.

  Molly disagreed, pointing out that shortly after they vacated the hold, it had been filled with some sort of cargo brought up from the surface of Lakor. In addition, Molly suggested, the pirates could have hidden motives for allowing them more freedom as well. What if it was part of a plan? A plan in which the girls would wind up colluding in their own slavery? At what point do prisoners cease to be prisoners, and join ranks with those who imprisoned them?

  Some of the girls agreed, and were suspicious of pirate motives, but Lia, one of the older girls, was especially critical of Molly's ideas.

  "Come on, Molly," she'd whispered, "you griped when we were in the hold . . . and you're griping now. Give us a break. Things are better, that's all. Quit worrying so much."

  But Molly did worry, and planned to keep right on worrying, no matter what. The pirates had attacked Alice, killed innocent people, and sold children
into slavery. Maybe the others could forgive and forget but not Molly. No, she planned to get free, and get even. No matter how long that took.

  Because of her attitude Molly had fallen from a position of leadership into that of semi-outcast. She hoped Mommy wouldn't be disappointed, but Lia was wrong, and wasn't there a difference between popularity and leadership? Daddy said so . . . and Molly hoped he was right.

  Time passed, and finally, when the last of the whispered conversations had died away, and everyone else was asleep, Molly made her move.

  Slipping out from under the covers Molly tiptoed to the doorway and touched the softly glowing circle of red light. The circle turned green and the hatch hissed open.

  Molly paused, searched the compartment for signs of movement, and seeing none stepped outside.

  Satisfied that she'd managed to slip out of the room undetected, Molly padded down the corridor, ready to claim a stomachache if she encountered a member of the crew.

  It felt weird to wear the one-piece black body stocking in the corridor, but that's what the girls used for pajamas, so that's what she'd have on if truly on her way to the sick bay.

  This would be her last trip to the S-4 damage-control station. She'd been there three times before, and didn't dare make any more trips after this one. Someone or something was sure to go wrong eventually and trip her up.

  Intended for use during a full scale disaster, the station's computer console would provide backup access to the vessel's atmospheric and fire-control systems, allowing the crew to pump oxygen out of various compartments, dump fire retardant in, or selectively cut power to various locations.

  As such the computer console located in S-4 had nothing to do with the ship's primary navcomp, or wasn't supposed to, but Molly had written a conversion program that linked both computers together. Or had almost linked them together, since she was still in the process of debugging the conversion, and had yet to actually access the navcomp.

  By now Martha Chong, Molly's computer instructor back on Alice, would have been mumbling in frustration. The truth was that at least two of the other girls were better with computers than Molly was, but she couldn't trust them. They were friends of Lia's, and the older girl would make fun of the whole thing.

  Assuming that she did gain access to the navcomp, Molly planned to obtain a cube dump of the ship's travels for the last month or so. By backtracking along the ship's course she could find Alice. Assuming she had something to backtrack in, which she didn't, but like Mom always said, "Take one thing at a time, Molly. Take one thing at a time."

  Like all damage-control stations this one was unlocked. After all, in the case of major damage to the ship's hull, there would be scant time for access codes. Nor was there any way to be sure which crew member would use the station. So, like S-1, S-2, and S-3, S-4 was unsecured.

  Molly took one last look around, saw nothing but empty corridor, and palmed the access panel. The hatch slid open, then closed behind her.

  It was a tiny compartment with barely enough room for tool storage, a computer console, and an emergency patch kit.

  Molly felt her pulse start to pound a little faster. While her stomach ache story might fly out in the corridor, it wouldn't do much good in here. She forced the fear down and back.

  A rudimentary seat was held up against the bulkhead by a spring-loaded hinge. Molly pushed the seat down and sat on it. The metal felt cold through the thin body stocking.

  Molly slid the keyboard out of its recess and turned it on. Under normal circumstances that would have activated one of the zillion indicator lights located on the bridge, but she had eliminated that function the first time out. Having spent hundreds of hours on her father's ships, Molly had a better-than-average understanding of how they worked.

  Molly entered a multidigit code, checked to make sure that no one had tampered with her program, and went to work.

  Five minutes later Molly was completely lost in what she was doing. Bit by bit Molly felt her way through the last few interfaces, neutralized two security procedures meant to keep her out, and dipped into the navcomp's huge memory. Not bad for one of Chong's worst students.

  Her first question was simple: "Where is the ship now?"

  A long string of numbers flooded the screen.

  Molly frowned and fingers flew over keys: "Request plain language description of the ship's position using nearest stars or planets as points of reference."

  The reply was almost instantaneous: "Ship is en route from Lakor to Drang."

  Molly nodded. The ship was headed for Drang, wherever that was. Okay, enough messing around. First she'd get a cube dump on the mathematical stuff . . . then she'd back out of the navcomp, erasing the conversion program as she went. In fifteen or twenty minutes she'd have everything she needed and no one the wiser.

  Molly had just started to type when she heard feet scuffle outside. She whirled just in time to see the hatch open.

  Lia stood outside, as did a smug-looking Boots and an angry Raz. Lia smiled and pointed a triumphant finger in Molly's direction.

  "There she is, sir . . . just like I told you. Thank goodness you caught her in time! There's no telling what harm she might have done!"

  Eleven

  Nexus. That was the name it had given itself, or had been given, depending on which story you chose to believe.

  It made little difference to McCade. To him Nexus was a place, a place to look for Molly, or clues that would point in her direction.

  At the moment Nexus just hung there, a vast amalgamation of interconnected spaceships, slowly spinning before a distant star.

  The ships came in all shapes and sizes. There were tankers, freighters, tugs, yachts, liners, and Sol knows what else, at least a hundred of them, all hooked together in what looked like random order, their various shapes appearing and disappearing as dim sunlight moved across their combined hulls.

  Taken as a whole, the ships and the computer that made the gathering possible were known as Nexus.

  The purpose of the gathering was simple, to sell things you didn't need, and buy things you did. And to do so without the taxes, duties, laws, and other encumbrances that so often get in the way of free trade.

  That's why Nexus was located out along the rim, beyond the jurisdiction of systemic or planetary governments, and a law unto itself.

  Nexus was not without structure however, no, it was far too complex to function without rules, and that meant a guiding intelligence.

  And that intelligence was supplied by a sentient computer, a machine of rather mysterious origins, which ran Nexus like a personal fiefdom.

  There were two theories about the artificial intelligence. One held that the computer had escaped from some sort of governmental research project, while the other suggested that the AI was owned by a huge mega-corp, and provided it with a source of untaxed revenue.

  McCade decided it didn't make too much difference which theory was true. Nexus pulled some heavy G's any way you figured it. More than that, Nexus knew the details of every transaction that took place within its sphere of influence, including what was traded by whom.

  McCade stuck a cigar in his mouth and puffed it into life. The smoke floated upward and drifted toward a vent.

  So, if Pong, or any of Pong's ships, had been here, chances were Nexus would know. In some ways it was a long shot . . . and in some ways it wasn't.

  There were a limited number of places where one could sell stolen goods on a large scale, and because Pong had betrayed the pirates during the Vial of Tears episode, he was barred from the brotherhood's markets. The primary one being located on the fortified planet known as The Rock.

  That meant he'd have to use one of the others, and there weren't all that many to choose from. There was Tin Town, a free-floating, wide-open, anything-goes habitat, a rather grubby planet called Seed, and a few others, the most famous of which was Nexus.

  So, having made sure that all of the children were safely aboard the small freighter that wo
uld carry them to Alice, McCade held a council of war.

  They listed alternative destinations, discussed the pros and cons of each, and came to a final decision. Nexus. It wasn't controlled by the brotherhood, was relatively close to Lakor, and played a significant role in the slave trade.

  Shortly thereafter the group said good-bye to a smug King Lif, climbed aboard their shuttle, and lifted for space.

  Once aboard Void Runner it was a quick jump into hyperspace and a three-day trip to the point called Nexus.

  Most of them enjoyed the trip, or would have had their mission been different, the exception being Rico. He'd fallen into an ever-deepening depression. It was clear that Vanessa's death weighed heavily on his mind.