The Iron Admiral: Conspiracy

The Iron Admiral: Conspiracy - Chapter two

“Ally can do that. I’m parched.”

Allysha rolled her eyes. Typical. “That’s okay. Maybe you can drop him off.”

Van Tongeren stopped the skimmer outside a welcoming looking place where scattered tables and benches were interspersed with plants in colored planter boxes. The sign over the door proclaimed the ‘Miners Refuge’. Bouncy, repetitive music played too loudly. Sean alighted and van Tongeren drove on to a stand-alone prefab house just off the main square.

She walked through the rooms. A pre-fab, sure, but neat and clean, the furniture modern and functional. “Only one bedroom. Is this for both of us?”

“You were listed as a married couple.”

“Estranged. I don’t want to share with him. Is there anywhere else?”

“Well… you could bunk in with some of the other girls in a dorm…?”

She shook her head. Not a chance. “He can bunk in with somebody.”

“We don’t have much spare space. Maybe I can put him in the Ptorix quarters.” He muttered the words, almost to himself.

Ptorix quarters? That sounded interesting. “You have Ptorix quarters?”

He rubbed his hand over his lips. “Well… there’s what used to be the Ptorix mine manager’s quarters in the mine itself.” His lips curled in distaste. “Not ideal, but we fitted it out for humans so we could use it while the real accommodation was built.”

That sounded good. She could live in a Ptorix apartment, especially if it had some human furniture. “I’d like to see that, please.”

Van Tongeren drove back the way they’d come, passed the landing platform and pulled over next to a shiny new human door in a towering rock wall. Allysha eyed a remnant of lichen-encrusted carving and swirling, dancing symbols on the door surrounds, leftovers of a Ptorix past. He pressed a switch and the door slid away soundlessly to reveal a well-lit tunnel, clearly newly worked. A tingle of disquiet disturbed her thoughts as she followed him into the mine. A Ptorix tunnel would have been decorated but the rock was bare, not even weathered. Van Tongeren turned left into a side passage. Thirty meters along he ran up a flight of flowing steps on the right until once again they stood at the pointed arch of a Ptorix doorway with a very human door carved into its center.

He opened the door for her. “We had to whitewash the walls. Those complicated patterns they use are so hard on the eyes. We fitted it out with proper furniture and a bed and such but none of our people wanted to live here after we’d built the settlement. Understandable, really.”

Allysha gazed around at arched doorways and curved walls and ceilings. Typically Ptorix, but fitted out for humans. The living room contained a dining table and four chairs, a sofa, a couple of comfortable looking chairs and a Holovid setup. She glimpsed a large bed and a wardrobe in the second room.

Here and there the original decoration on the walls was just visible through the whitewash, ornate and organic. Oh, the vandalism, the wanton, mindless destruction. But then again, she could see the patterns the way the Ptorix did and humans would just see a complex, shifting, disconcerting mess. Or so she’d been told.

An archway inside the bedroom led to a washroom containing a large bathing pool and a Ptorix-style toilet—usable by a human if you knew how. The bathing pool was empty. These people probably didn’t know how to find the faucets let alone operate them. If she stayed here, she’d have privacy, be close to work and away from Sean. They’d all think she was crazy but that was okay.

“They must have filled the bath with buckets,” van Tongeren said behind her. “We have proper ablutions blocks quite nearby so we didn’t refit—it would have been an enormous job.”

“I’ll stay here,” she said.

His expression hardly changed but she’d caught the glint that said he thought she was insane.

“If you’re sure.” He lifted his shoulders in the briefest of shrugs. “I’ll have your luggage delivered. There’s a canteen here of course. I’ll show you that and the control room where you’ll be working. Is there anything else you’ll need?”

“Just access to your IS from here. A data point is fine. And you’ll need to give me administrator rights to all your systems.”

He nodded. “I’ll have it arranged.” After a moment’s hesitation he added, “I can’t do that for the Ptorix systems.”

She grinned. “No, I guess not. I’ll manage that myself.” She could have given herself administrator access to the human systems, too. But he didn’t need to know that.

“I’ll leave you, then. I’ll introduce you to Emment the shift manager tomorrow morning. He can take you around so you can give me a solid estimate of cost and time if that suits?”

“Sure.”

She closed the door behind him. Ignorant schlon. She wondered if all humans who came from human planets were as intolerant as him. At least at home humans and Ptorix got along. Most of the time, anyway. Although even on Carnessa the relationship she and her father shared with Professor Xanthor and his family was vanishingly rare. Her father. It had been five years, now. She missed him so very, very much.

****

Sean knew van Tongeren had arrived without even looking. The pretty barmaid took out a cloth and started wiping the benchtop instead of leaning over to talk to him.

“A word, if you please,” van Tongeren said. He led the way to a bench outside the tavern where the music receded to a background thumping. “It seems to me you and your wife don’t get on, O’Reilly. Is that going to be a problem?”

Fuck. He’d hoped they could paper over the cracks; for now, anyway. No chance of winning her back this time. If she hadn’t come back early and caught him with Nessa, it would have been okay. “Don’t worry about Ally. She gets like that sometimes. She’ll get over it.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

Sean shrugged. “She will.” He hoped.

“If she’s as good as everyone seems to say, I’ll want her to move on to the other work as soon as possible.”

“I told you, it won’t be a problem.”

Van Tongeren leant back in the chair and smiled. “Would I be right in assuming you don’t want me to discuss the other matter with her?”

“Not if you want it done. Just leave it to me.”

The other man’s smile widened; a calculating, evaluating smile that had nothing to do with humor. “Just bear in mind, you get paid for the whole job. Or not at all.”

Sean’s heart jolted. He didn’t like the way the fellow said that. But it would be all right. All he had to do was make sure Ally went on to van Tongeren’s other task. One way or another.

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