Something Coming Through

50. Deal

Mangala | 30 July

Cal McBride’s goons took Vic’s rifle and pistol, patted him and Adam Nevers down. One of them found the crumpled nest of gold wire in Vic’s breast pocket and handed it to McBride, who weighed it in his palm and asked Vic what it was. McBride was sitting on a slab of rock, wearing a safari jacket and a sheepskin gilet, not quite aiming his pistol at Vic and Nevers. His head was bandaged and, under the dusty lenses of his goggles, his eyes were puffy and bruised.

‘It’s a gift from a friend of Mr Nevers,’ Vic said.

‘It’s some kind of Elder Culture shit, isn’t it?’

‘You tell me. You’re the one who has an interest in the artefact business.’

‘What does it do?’

‘I’d be happy to give you a demonstration,’ Nevers said.

‘I bet you would.’

McBride joggled the wire again, then stuffed it into the breast pocket of his safari jacket. ‘You’re here because you’re chasing people who have fallen under the spell of some kind of Elder Culture eidolon. You think it’s leading them to some kind of dangerous artefact. And I’m here because I’m after Danny Drury, who snatched those people and put them to work, looking for that artefact in the site I excavated. So the thing of it is, we’re both on the same side.’

Vic said, ‘Was it Drury who gave you the bang on the head and those two shiners?’

‘He ambushed me outside that little shithole of a town, and he killed three of my people,’ McBride said. ‘He has some muscle down there with him, ex-Army types, but me and my boys have been scouting the lie of the land, and I reckon that if we join forces we can take them down. You get Drury, Mr Nevers gets the people he chased halfway across the galaxy, and I get back the company Drury stole from me while I was in jail. How does that sound?’

‘I’m not going to agree to anything while there are guns pointed at me,’ Vic said.

‘You agree to help me, the guns are put away,’ McBride said, and stood up and held out his hand. ‘Why don’t we shake on it, like gentlemen?’

‘I’ve got a better idea,’ Vic said. ‘Hand over your weapons and sit tight while I wake up my drone. Something’s going on down there. I want to know what it is.’

‘What’s going on, Drury is digging up something that belongs to me,’ McBride said. ‘And if we don’t stop him, he’s going to load it into his fucking speedboat and take off back to civilisation. And then what are you going to do?’

‘I can arrest him when he gets back to Petra.’

‘And what about the people who led him to this shit? The people haunted by that eidolon. You think he’s going to take them back with him?’

‘He has a point,’ Nevers said. ‘If Fahad Chauhan and the others are down there, Drury doesn’t have any incentive to keep them alive once they’ve led him to the prize.’

‘Oh, they’re down there, all right,’ McBride said. ‘Drury couldn’t find his own fucking arse without a map.’

‘And if we help you, what happens to us once you get what you want?’ Vic said.

‘I told you,’ McBride said. ‘You get to arrest Drury, and save Fahad and his friends. You get to come out of this a hero. We all do.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Why not? Pride? Principles? They won’t save that kid and his friends.’

‘I think you’d take the artefact and leave no witnesses,’ Vic said.

‘I admit, part of the reason I came here was for the artefact,’ McBride said. ‘But I can’t get it without your help. So I’ll settle for getting my company back, and making sure Danny Drury gets what’s coming to him.’

The two of them stared at each other, standing in the dusty wind under the sky’s frozen ghostlight.

Nevers said, ‘I’ll help you take Drury down. And as far as I’m concerned, you get to keep everything he took off you. You can even kill him, if you want. That’s none of my business. But you don’t get to keep what’s down there. Because that’s my business, and I intend to destroy it.’

‘You really think it’s powerful shit, don’t you?’

‘I know it is. And I know how to put a stop to it.’

McBride patted his breast pocket. ‘With this thing of yours.’

‘Exactly. I came here to put an end to something horribly dangerous. Something that controls and destroys everyone who tries to use it. If you help me, you’ll get Drury, and everything he took from you. Do we have a deal?’

Vic couldn’t read Nevers. Couldn’t tell if he was making a play or if he really wanted to go in with McBride.

‘What about your friend?’ McBride said.

‘You think we’re friends because we’re both police? Six hours ago I was locked up in a cell,’ Nevers said. ‘Gayle let me out only because he needed my help. And now I’m offering you that same help.’

Vic said, ‘I suppose, Mr McBride, that in addition to getting your company back, you’ll want to walk on the murder of Ellis Peters, too.’

McBride gave him a look of perfectly constructed innocence. ‘Of who?’

‘Mr Nevers’s partner. The man you killed outside the shuttle terminal.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Yes you do. You killed him with your ray gun. Burned his brains out.’

McBride said, ‘If I had this ray gun, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we? Because I wouldn’t need your help to take Drury down. He’s the one who has it. He used it to kill your partner, Mr Nevers, and he’ll use it to kill Fahad Chauhan and the others if we don’t do something about it. So, do we have a deal?’

‘I take care of the artefact,’ Nevers said. ‘And you take care of Drury.’

‘Absolutely. Word of honour,’ McBride said, and stuck out his hand again.

Nevers stepped forward and grasped it. Golden light flared around them.