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The man in the canary-yellow cagoule was almost level with the little gap between the outhouses before Qui
The retinal implant showed him a ghostly red figure weaving unsteadily from side to side. Rain showed as a gritty pale pink mist, the buildings were claret-coloured crags.
Qui
His victim gave a single grunt of pain, and collapsed forwards into the mud.
“Jackson!” Qui
“Qui
He looked round, seeing Jackson emerge from behind the barrels. His skin shone a strong burgundy in the infrared spectrum, arteries and veins near the surface showing up as brighter scarlet lines.
“Over here. Walk forward three steps, then turn left.” He guided Jackson up to the body, enjoying the sense of power. Jackson would follow his leadership, and the others would fall into line.
Together they dragged their victim into the outhouse—Qui
Both of them went over to the pile of clothes they had left heaped on a broken composite cargo-pod. Qui
“Forget it, Qui
“Hey, don’t lose cool,” Qui
He started to pull on the clothes which belonged to one of last night’s victims, a green short-sleeved shirt and baggy blue shorts, waterproof boots which were only fractionally too large. Three pairs of socks stopped them from rubbing blisters. He was strongly tempted to take those boots upriver, he didn’t like to think what would happen to his feet in the lightweight Ivet-issue shoes.
“Right, let’s see what we’ve got,” he said. They stripped the cagoule from the unconscious man. He groaned weakly. His shorts were soiled, and a ribbon of piss ran out of the cagoule.
Definitely a new colonist, Qui
His belt carried a fission-blade knife, a miniature thermal inducer, and a personal MF flek-player block.
Qui
“We’ll be searched,” Jackson said. “Anything you like, we’ll be searched.”
“So? We stash them in the colonists’ gear. We’ll be the ones that load it onto the boat, we’ll be the ones that unload it at the other end.”
“Right.”
Qui
“Can you use it?” Jackson asked urgently.
Qui
When the nanonic signalled the pattern had been recorded, he held up the Jovian Bank credit disk and touched his thumb to the centre. Green figures lit up on the silver side.
Jackson Gael let out a fast triumphant hoot, and slapped Qui
They both stood up.
“Hell, we don’t even have to go upriver now,” Jackson said. “We can set up in town. Christ, we can live like kings.”
“Don’t be bloody stupid. This is only going to be good until he’s reported missing, which will be tomorrow morning.” His toe nudged the inert form on the wet floor.
“So change it into something; gold, diamonds, bales of cloth.”
Qui
“So what do we do with it, then?”
“We change some of it. These local francs have a cash issue as well as disks. So we spend heavily, and the locals will love giving a pair of dumb-arse colonists their toy francs as change instead of real money. Then we buy a few goodies we can take upriver that will make life a lot easier, like a decent weapon or two. After that . . .” He brought the disk up to his face. “It goes into the mud. We don’t leave any evidence, OK?”
Jackson pulled a face, but nodded regretfully. “OK, Qui
Baker moaned again, the wavery sound of a man trapped in a bad dream.
Qui
After visiting a couple of pubs, the place they wound up at was called Donovan’s. It was several kilometres away from the port district, safely distant from any Group Seven members who might be having a last night in the big city. In any case, it wasn’t the sort of place that the staunchly family types of Group Seven sought out.
Like most of Durringham’s buildings, it was single storey, with walls of thick black wood. Stone piles raised it a metre above the ground, and there was a veranda right along the front, with drinkers slouched over the railing, glass tankards of beer in their hands, watching the newcomers with hazed eyes. The road outside had a thick layer of stone chippings spread over it. For once Qui