Last time I was at Elmara port, waiting for the technicians to check out some ice damage on the Stonebird's wingtips and recalibrate the IR sensor avionics, I saw a man passing by and got chatting to him. He claimed he was a trader in antiques and valuable objects, and brought out an old knife from his pocket to show me. I wouldn't have guessed he was a trader, though, from his unwashed clothes. But the way he seemed self-conscious about his appearance hinted that he was just down on his luck and was used to living in a better style.
At first I thought he was just old, then the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth seemed more like what happens when you're out in the sun all day, every day. He walked and talked like someone who was weary of the whole world and its foolish ways, but when he showed me the knife he came alive. He introduced himself as Habbick Mendoza.
He said that knife had been used by Optarch Klime to cut the parchment that became the Treaty of Sergoy's Star. I recalled those names from a history lesson a couple of years ago, and nodded as if I knew the value of that knife very well. I didn't, really, and he could tell. He shook his head at me and told a story of when he was last on Uvantikrove.
But first, once the techs had asked me to sign off on the work they'd done, and I'd locked the old Stonebird up, Habbick invited me over to the food stand at the edge of the steelcrete plain, the apron where all the ships park. That way we could watch the take-offs and landings. Suited me fine.
He was in Uvantikrove's smog-smothered, megacity capital, eating his last meal before flying out of the capital to hunt antiques in some provincial towns when a man approached him and said he wanted to hire him to do a missing-persons job. Habbick got an uneasy feeling from this guy. He never looked Habbick in the eye and kept on flicking his own eyes around the lounge where he perched on the edge of his chair, as if he was hunting someone - or being hunted.
Anyway, Habbick needed spare cash for travelling and living on Uvantikrove. Everything's expensive there, he said. So he took the job. The man wanted him to find a lost cousin who was a little unstable, depressed, and often took off where no one could find him. Said the cousin would take fright if he himself showed up. He gave Habbick a photo and some bank account details and a district of the city where most of the man's friends lived.
So Habbick hunted around for a couple of days, up and down Uvantikrove's ten-mile-high towers until he was elevator-sick, and finally met someone who'd met the cousin and knew where he'd gone. So Habbick flew out to the town, found a room in a hotel, found a few antiques and did some bargaining. Then he found the man he was looking for - he'd been hiding in a room in another hotel. Habbick glimpsed his face in a washroom mirror and followed him into the corridor, then asked him to advise him on a good restaurant. They got talking.
But he wasn't the other man's cousin, of course. Habbick had guessed that. His story was much more difficult, and once Habbick had convinced the man - named San Kibianse - that he hadn't come to kill or kidnap him, the truth came pouring out. Kibianse was starving. He'd been sitting in his room for days without anything to eat.
Kibianse was a scientist, and a top-notch one. He'd been working almost as a slave for a wealthy industrialist named Keltame Iridiake. Habbick realised that the shifty man who'd hired him must have been an employee of Iridiake. Exactly what Kibianse had been researching was beyond Habbick, but it had something to do with bio-nanotech, using artificial molecular machines as part of the human body, perhaps, or growing transplant organs from them. Kibianse was the sort of person who couldn't explain himself very well, and was full of nervous habits, talking to himself and getting distracted. He'd been locked up in his laboratory with a few others until one day he'd made the breakthrough that Iridiake had been demanding from him for so long.
He looked at what he'd done and realised what Iridiake could do with that. It must have been something terrible, something that would kill, or cause much suffering, for he immediately gathered up all his results on one data chip, took apart his test equipment, flushing away what he'd produced down the sink, and found a way to escape. Habbick thinks he had made friends with one of the security people and was smuggled outside Iridiake's lab tower at night.
So what was Habbick to do? He got Kibianse some food, then thought about it. If he helped Kibianse he'd probably be inviting Iridiake's thugs to chase him down and give him a beating. If he didn't, if he turned Kibianse in, then what burden would he carry on his shoulders for the rest of his life? He didn't need the money that badly.
A week later, Habbick said, he walked Kibianse aboard a freightliner bound for Nychame, registered under a false name. He settled him safely in a city on one of Nychame's many planets where he could start his life over again. As for Habbick, he had spent almost all of his cash and had to work his passage aboard a freighter bound for the distant border of the Inborl regions. But the captain dumped him on Elmarune and so he'd found a job in spaceport administration for the time being.
Habbick had finished his smeshmeat roll-up long before as he stood there, telling me this. I had a feeling he hadn't told many people his story before and had bottled it up for too long. He gazed out across the apron as if he were looking for something he'd lost. He muttered, "Trouble is, people like Iridiake just go and hire some other puppet and get what they want anyway. I had a feeling from that scientist's babbling that Iridiake was under pressure himself, from someone higher up. I shudder to think who that could be."
I didn't have much to say, but I had to get going. I told him thanks for the story, and he shook his head at me again, as if he'd forgotten I was there, or like I obviously hadn't understood a word. Then we went our seperate ways and I never saw him again.
BACK TO STAR CATALOG
Thanks to Victor Habbick for the images used in the Elmara port city image above.
At first I thought he was just old, then the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth seemed more like what happens when you're out in the sun all day, every day. He walked and talked like someone who was weary of the whole world and its foolish ways, but when he showed me the knife he came alive. He introduced himself as Habbick Mendoza.
He said that knife had been used by Optarch Klime to cut the parchment that became the Treaty of Sergoy's Star. I recalled those names from a history lesson a couple of years ago, and nodded as if I knew the value of that knife very well. I didn't, really, and he could tell. He shook his head at me and told a story of when he was last on Uvantikrove.
But first, once the techs had asked me to sign off on the work they'd done, and I'd locked the old Stonebird up, Habbick invited me over to the food stand at the edge of the steelcrete plain, the apron where all the ships park. That way we could watch the take-offs and landings. Suited me fine.
 |
| A busy day at Elmara port. |
He was in Uvantikrove's smog-smothered, megacity capital, eating his last meal before flying out of the capital to hunt antiques in some provincial towns when a man approached him and said he wanted to hire him to do a missing-persons job. Habbick got an uneasy feeling from this guy. He never looked Habbick in the eye and kept on flicking his own eyes around the lounge where he perched on the edge of his chair, as if he was hunting someone - or being hunted.
Anyway, Habbick needed spare cash for travelling and living on Uvantikrove. Everything's expensive there, he said. So he took the job. The man wanted him to find a lost cousin who was a little unstable, depressed, and often took off where no one could find him. Said the cousin would take fright if he himself showed up. He gave Habbick a photo and some bank account details and a district of the city where most of the man's friends lived.
So Habbick hunted around for a couple of days, up and down Uvantikrove's ten-mile-high towers until he was elevator-sick, and finally met someone who'd met the cousin and knew where he'd gone. So Habbick flew out to the town, found a room in a hotel, found a few antiques and did some bargaining. Then he found the man he was looking for - he'd been hiding in a room in another hotel. Habbick glimpsed his face in a washroom mirror and followed him into the corridor, then asked him to advise him on a good restaurant. They got talking.
But he wasn't the other man's cousin, of course. Habbick had guessed that. His story was much more difficult, and once Habbick had convinced the man - named San Kibianse - that he hadn't come to kill or kidnap him, the truth came pouring out. Kibianse was starving. He'd been sitting in his room for days without anything to eat.
Kibianse was a scientist, and a top-notch one. He'd been working almost as a slave for a wealthy industrialist named Keltame Iridiake. Habbick realised that the shifty man who'd hired him must have been an employee of Iridiake. Exactly what Kibianse had been researching was beyond Habbick, but it had something to do with bio-nanotech, using artificial molecular machines as part of the human body, perhaps, or growing transplant organs from them. Kibianse was the sort of person who couldn't explain himself very well, and was full of nervous habits, talking to himself and getting distracted. He'd been locked up in his laboratory with a few others until one day he'd made the breakthrough that Iridiake had been demanding from him for so long.
He looked at what he'd done and realised what Iridiake could do with that. It must have been something terrible, something that would kill, or cause much suffering, for he immediately gathered up all his results on one data chip, took apart his test equipment, flushing away what he'd produced down the sink, and found a way to escape. Habbick thinks he had made friends with one of the security people and was smuggled outside Iridiake's lab tower at night.
So what was Habbick to do? He got Kibianse some food, then thought about it. If he helped Kibianse he'd probably be inviting Iridiake's thugs to chase him down and give him a beating. If he didn't, if he turned Kibianse in, then what burden would he carry on his shoulders for the rest of his life? He didn't need the money that badly.
A week later, Habbick said, he walked Kibianse aboard a freightliner bound for Nychame, registered under a false name. He settled him safely in a city on one of Nychame's many planets where he could start his life over again. As for Habbick, he had spent almost all of his cash and had to work his passage aboard a freighter bound for the distant border of the Inborl regions. But the captain dumped him on Elmarune and so he'd found a job in spaceport administration for the time being.
Habbick had finished his smeshmeat roll-up long before as he stood there, telling me this. I had a feeling he hadn't told many people his story before and had bottled it up for too long. He gazed out across the apron as if he were looking for something he'd lost. He muttered, "Trouble is, people like Iridiake just go and hire some other puppet and get what they want anyway. I had a feeling from that scientist's babbling that Iridiake was under pressure himself, from someone higher up. I shudder to think who that could be."
I didn't have much to say, but I had to get going. I told him thanks for the story, and he shook his head at me again, as if he'd forgotten I was there, or like I obviously hadn't understood a word. Then we went our seperate ways and I never saw him again.
BACK TO STAR CATALOG
Thanks to Victor Habbick for the images used in the Elmara port city image above.
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