The Supernaturalist Part 18

Floyd and Bruce felt two lightning rods being jammed painfully into their kneecaps. Ditto was grinning up at them. 'You're the ones who'll be spitting up, if I empty a full charge into you.'Lincoln had to laugh. 'Bartoli?'

Ditto nodded. 'One of the last.'

'OK, dimwits,' said Lincoln. 'Put away the bolt guns before the little one makes your hair curl.'

Floyd and Bruce did what they were told grudgingly.

'A genuine Bartoli,' said Lincoln. 'What are your mutes?'

Ditto scowled. 'I prefer the term special talents.'

'Mutations, special talents, whatever term you wish. What can you do?'

'I'm the medic in our group.'

'Healing hands. I've heard of that. Are you sensitive too?'

'To what?'

'The spirit world. The TV scientists say that Bartoli woke parts of the brain that have lain dormant for millennia.'

'I know what the brainers say,' snapped Ditto with unusual ferocity. 'No, I'm not sensitive. Good looks, that's it.'

Lincoln lay back in his threadbare chair. 'It looks like you got the drop on me, Stefan. So let's get down to business. What can I do for you?'

'I need a High Alt.i.tude Low Orbit s.h.i.+p,' said Stefan bluntly.

Lincoln laughed. Rust flakes fluttered from the creases in his face.

'A HALO, just like that. No schmoozing first?'

'I don't have time for schmoozing. I need a HALO now. Today.'

'What would I be doing with a HALO? That would be illegal. I'd have public and private police trying to lock me up. Your mother must have been mistaken. A desert hallucination, perhaps.'

Stefan brought his fist down on the desk. 'My mother was a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p nut. It was her hobby. She used to bring me down to the Cape to watch the rockets take off. She knew every model ever made. She was not mistaken. You're the s.p.a.ce pirate the privates are all looking for.'

'And if I am?' said Lincoln. 'Not that I'm admitting anything mind. Who else would clean up s.p.a.ce? Who else would salvage all those junked satellites? In my humble opinion, whoever is sending up those rogue HALOs is doing the Earth a favour. The world's first cosmic trashman. The occasional pirate TV broadcast is a small price to pay for clean s.p.a.ce.''Yeah, yeah, you deserve a medal. Now where's the s.h.i.+p?'

Lincoln's face was suddenly deadly serious. 'Why would I give a s.h.i.+p to you people? A bunch of children? You're not old enough to drive that heap of junk outside, not to mention a HALO.'

'You grow up quickly in the Big Pig,' retorted Stefan bitterly. 'We've survived on our own for years. The only thing adults have done for us in the recent past is try to kill us. You can program the HALO from here. She'll go up and back without us having to touch an instrument. All we want to do is be on board.'

'You still haven't told me why I would want to give you my s.h.i.+p, if I had one.

What's in it for me?'

Stefan drew a computer panel wallet from inside his coat. He laid it on the table.

'And what is that?' asked Lincoln, trying to appear disinterested. 'The latest 3D video game?'

'No, Lincoln, it's a piggyback panel. With a Lockheed Martin solar panel face and a two million gigabyte memory capacity. I acquired it recently from a friend.'

Lincoln nudged the panel. 'Piggyback panel. Oh, really. What's on the memory?'

'Nothing at the moment. Plenty of memory there to run a pirate TV station.'

Lincoln weighed the panel on his palm. 'In theory. But you need a big dish to hook into.'

'We have a dish. The biggest.'

'Don't kid a kidder, Stefan. n.o.body gets near the Satellite without corporate access codes. You go within a kilometre without codes and they blast you into s.p.a.ce.'

Stefan slid the panel inside his pocket. 'You leave the codes to me. This is the opportunity of a lifetime, Lincoln. I can hook you up with a panel on the Satellite.

You'll be broadcasting for months before they trace it.'

Lincoln scratched a clean patch on his chin. 'And all I have to do is?'

'Give me the starter card for the HALO I know you have parked out the back.'

'Two million gigabytes, you say?'

'All yours. I give you a link-up chip and you're set.'

Lincoln was sold, but he fought against it. 'You know how much one of those s.h.i.+ps costs, Stefan?'

'About one tenth of what you'll make from the independent TV companies.'

'This could all be lies, Stefan. Maybe you just need my s.h.i.+p and you don't have any codes.'

Stefan's glare cut through the particle-heavy air. 'You have my word, Lincoln. I swear it on my mother's soul.'

Lincoln waved his hands. 'No need to get all morbid, swearing on souls. That kind of thing is bad form.'

'Well, do we have a deal?'

Lincoln stood; rust fell from his clothes like dry snakeskin.

'Yes, young Bashkir. We have a deal.'

Stefan extended a hand. 'Let's shake on it.' Lincoln ignored the gesture. 'We can shake when you bring my s.h.i.+p back in one piece.'

Lincoln led the Supernaturalists around the rear of the Junkyard to what appeared to be a solid wall of salvaged cars. He fished a garage-door remote from a string around his neck, and hit the b.u.t.ton. The wall split down the middle, rolling apart on rickety tracks. Immediately half a dozen stocky dogs lunged forwards on bungee-chains.

Their lips were drawn back to reveal yellowed teeth, and dribbles of s...o...b..r swung from their jaws like jump ropes.

Lincoln hit another b.u.t.ton on the remote and the bungee-chains were coiled in.

'I don't care how hi-tech things get, you can't beat a hungry mutt for security.'

The dogs were a curious breed with blunt snouts and red pelts.

Lincoln threw them a handful of bones from a bucket. 'You like my babies? They cost me a pretty penny. I ordered them test-tubed from Cuba. Mostly pit-bull genes.

Some bear too and a few strands of chameleon for colour.'

The HALO sat on a grille surrounded by a cage of ice. Refrigerator pumps spewed sub-zero crystals on to the glossy surface. The s.h.i.+p's hull s.h.i.+mmered inside the frozen panes.

'You are a very fortunate young man, Stefan,' said Lincoln. 'We had a launch planned for tonight. Nothing special, just a routine trawl to see what we could pick up. Otherwise it would take a few days to ice up the frame.'

Cosmo shuffled close to Mona. 'What's the ice for?'

'Camouflage, Cosmo. The HALO needs a couple of liquid-fuelled boosters to shoot her the first half-mile before the solar band kicks in. That kind of heat is going to show up on Myis.h.i.+ scanners. They don't have any patience for pirates messing about in s.p.a.ce. The ice stops the launch site showing up on screen. Pirates have been using ice boxes for decades.'

Floyd and Bruce hauled one of the ice panels across with bailing hooks. The HALO sat on four blocks like a car that's had its wheels boosted.

The Supernaturalists stepped inside the icy sheath. Cosmo touched the s.h.i.+p's cold panelling. 'This thing flies?'

Lincoln clipped him on the ear. 'Of course she flies, cheeky boy. She flies, she soars, she glides. But most importantly, she lands.' He handed over the starter card with a flourish. 'I don't suppose you'll be sharing the purpose of your voyage.'

Stefan pocketed the card, handing over the Lockheed Martin solar panel.

'You suppose right, Lincoln, old bean. We leave at dusk, so you have three hours to transfer whatever software you need on to the panel.'

'Do you have a mechanic?'

Mona was already busy with a screwdriver at one of the access panels. 'We have a mechanic. Gimme an hour and I'll tell you if we have a s.h.i.+p.'

Mona reported twenty-four electronic, computer and mechanical glitches from her HALO checklist.

'Twenty-four,' said Stefan, rubbing his chin. 'Anything critical?'

Mona consulted her list. 'Mostly comfort stuff. The air filters are due a change, but if it's a quick run we should be OK. I did pressure tests on the s.p.a.cesuits. They all need patching, except one. So you'll be going outside the s.h.i.+p alone, Stefan.'

'Good. No more unnecessary risks for anybody from now on.'

'The flaps barely move, so no sharp turns. Most of the circuits are held together with tape from the last century, and the windscreen is filthy.'

'Wipers?'

'No.'

'OK. Get a sponge and some hot water. We blast off in an hour.'

The HALO weighed fourteen tonnes and was roughly conical in shape. The craft was steered by tail flaps and a dozen gas jets, six of which were actually working. At some stage the hull had been coated with European Union blue, but most of that had been sc.r.a.ped off during various salvage missions. At the s.h.i.+p's base were two fixed boosters which would provide the propulsion for the initial gravity break, at which point the Wedding Band would take over.

The Wedding Band was a gold-plated ring of solar panels that oscillated continuously as the s.h.i.+p moved. Each panel charged in turn, then moved back to make contact with a magnetic ring on the hull, to deposit its charge and make room for the next cell. In outer s.p.a.ce, the HALO resembled nothing more than a surfer girl twirling a hula hoop.

'How far into outer s.p.a.ce are we going?' Cosmo asked Mona.

Mona was running a final systems check, with a little help from a dog-eared manual.

'Technically we're not going as far as outer s.p.a.ce: just past the edge of the atmosphere. What's the difference, Cosmo? A fall from anything over fifty feet will kill you. In any case we're far more likely to die from a pressure leak than a fall.'

'Thanks,' said Cosmo. 'I feel better now.'

'Good, because you're my co-pilot.'

Cosmo pulled his combat jacket closer against the chill from the ice sheets.

'Co-pilot? Mona, I can't even send automobile coordinates to the Satellite.'

'Don't worry, Cosmo. The computer does most of the work and when we get close enough, the Satellite will guide us in.'

'If we get the access codes,' Cosmo reminded her.

Mona frowned at a red light on the console. She rapped it with a knuckle and it turned green.

'If Stefan isn't worried about that, then I won't worry either.'

Lincoln poked his head through the hatch.

'The Lockheed,' he said, handing Mona the piggyback panel. 'Make sure you get a solid contact. Lift off in ten.'

Mona didn't take orders well. 'Lift off in ten? Is there a mission control somewhere that I didn't notice?'

Lincoln smiled sweetly. 'No, my sarcastic little munchkin, there is no mission control. But my fridge pumps are out of gas, so you go in ten or the ice frame melts and if that melts then you don't go at all. I'll let you explain that to Stefan, shall I?'

Mona returned to her final check. 'Good point. Ten minutes it is.'

Nine minutes later the Supernaturalists were strapped in gyrochairs, their ribs protected from g-force by armoured vests. Above them, the ice plates s.h.i.+mmered in the twilight.

'That ice will break, won't it?' asked Cosmo. 'It looks pretty thick.'

Mona's finger hovered over the ignition b.u.t.ton. 'It should, in theory. The prow has been fitted with an ice-breaker.'

Ditto and Stefan sat in the rear. In fact there were only three proper seats, so Ditto sat on Stefan's knee, held on by an extended harness.

The Bartoli Baby was not pleased. 'Of all the humiliations my condition has forced me to endure, this is the worst.'

Stefan patted him on the head. 'There, there, little fellow. Shall I tell you a story?'

'Stefan. This is not the time. I may be small, but I can still do some damage.'

Mona twisted in her gyrochair. 'You seem a bit cranky, Ditto. Maybe you have wind.'

Ditto lunged forward, but the harness held him fast.