A dark, cold world

The artist's blood dripped quietly onto the steel deck of the Unlikely To Fly's cargo hold. His nose was broken, seeping red; his left hand was missing a finger, dripping red; his legs and arms were bound with molecular wire that had lacerated the skin, leaking red.

Iskrin set a bowl of soapy water down at the man's feet and dipped a sponge into it. Joriquos Bos eyes him suspiciously through swollen, black eyes. "I told that fat bastard everything," he snarled as Iskrin began to mop at his wounds and Bos winced in pain, his words turning to a strangled scream of agony.

"I know," Iskrin replied calmly.

"I'll have you both hanged for this," Bos sneered as Iskrin wiped more blood away from the cuts on the painter's wrists.

"You won't," Iskrin replied evenly, his eyes focused on his work. "I'm going to remove these bonds." The captain took out a small device and disrupted the molecular contacts, which caused the wires to unwind from Bos' wrists and fall to the floor. For a moment, he thought that Bos' might try to do something stupid, but the sound of Sam cocking the hammer of his pistol caused the artist to sit still.

"You owe me a fucking finger," Bos growled at Sam.

"And you owe my friend for a fiance and ten years of pain," Sam said evenly, wiping sweat from his brow.

"I told you that was not my fault," Bos replied, his clipped, accented voice shaky with pain as Iskrin continued to clean him up. "Captain Charleton did not tell me what they were going to do to that godforsaken town. When he brought the girl onboard I tried to help her."

Iskrin slapped him hard across the face. "Lie again and you'll lose your tongue," he said quietly.

Bos prepared to speak and then stopped himself, breathing for a moment. "OK, perhaps I didn't try to help at first."

"Maybe you did a bit of raping, you mean?" Sam cut in.

"No, she wanted to... I mean."

Iskrin drew a knife from is belt and pushed the blade into the artist's mouth in one fluid movement. Bos sat staring in shock and horror, his eyes crossing as he tried to focus on the metal in his mouth, desperately attempting not to move. "Go on," Iskrin offered.

The artist shook his head very slightly and Iskrin withdrew the blade, a small trickle of blood leaking from the side of Bos' mouth. "OK. Yes," the artist agreed finally, licking at the blood on his lip. "I raped her. But when we got back to Sihnon, I tried to help her."

Iskrin moved the knife. "Seriously, I swear," Bos said desperately, watching the blade swing up in front of him. "I felt sorry for her. I tried to get her to a hospital. But they wanted to know what happened and I was not about to tell them."

"So you ran?" Sam asked, his gun pointing lazily at Bos' chest, a sour look on his face.

"I left her, yes," Bos agreed, grimacing as Iskrin applied a salve to the stump of his little finger. "But I am sure they took care of her."

His ministrations finished, Iskrin stood up, wiping his hands with the cloth and then chucking it back into the bowl with a splash. He stood staring at Bos for some time, noting the artist's fine clothes, his fashionable hair style, manicured hands, brilliant white teeth. "Let me tell you what I don't understand," the captain said, his voice quiet and calm. "Captain Charleton is dead. You'll be pleased to know he never mentioned your name, despite what I did to him."

Bos nodded. "I heard."

"But the thing is this: he always swore that keeping her wasn't his idea. That he'd planned to kill every gorram girl in the town to teach us a lesson about power. Not that doing so would o' saved him mind, which is why it always struck me as an odd thing to say." Iskrin glanced up at Sam, who had moved from leaning on the lockers to standing behind Bos.

"It is odd," Sam agreed.

"He said that one of his crew had asked him to keep the girl, but he wouldn't say which, even when I took out his eye."

Bos stared at Iskrin, mesmerized by the captain's words, panic and fear plain on his face as Iskrin spoke.

"Now I figure that member of the crew was you, Mr. Bos. So I know you ain't bein' straight with us. What do you think?"

Bos stared up at the captain, rubbing his mutilated hand and breathing hard. "I don't know," he whined, his usual, formal speech patterns lost to terror. Sam hit him in the ear with the butt of his pistol and Bos screamed. "OK, OK," he said quickly, clutching the side of his head. "I asked him to keep her. I wanted her but she was too fucking scared, too fucking stupid to know what was good for her."

Iskrin wanted nothing more than to beat this miserable excuse for a human to death, but he needed one specific piece of information that Sam still hadn't gotten out of Bos, despite the torture. "Go on," the captain said.

Bos took a steadying breath. "She kept crying and when she wasn't crying she was trying to escape. So we dumped her," he said, and then saw Sam's hand move out of the corner of his eye. "Alright!" he wailed, raising his hands protectively. "We sold her to a mercant at the Fengjin Downport. Said she'd take her as a handmaiden."

Iskrin took a moment to accept this information. Not dead, at least. And not sold for sex, if Bos could be believed. Life as a handmaiden might have been bearable for her, he thought, and then checked himself and the excuses he was making. Nothing was excusable about what had been done to Lys. "What was the merchant's name?" he finally asked, looking into the artist's frightened eyes.

For a moment it seemed as though Bos was going to refuse to answer, as he had done with Sam. But something seemed to click within him and he groaned, hanging his head and talking to the floor. "Simons. Arianne Simons."

Iskrin looked up at Sam for a reaction. The art dealer shrugged. "I know her," he said simply. "Haven't ever seen a girl in her service though."

Iskrin looked back down at Bos. "It is true. I swear it," the artist said, looking up at the two men. "I do not know what Arianne did with her, but your fat friend is right. The girl is not in her service now."

Iskrin stood in the familiar surroundings of the Unlikely To Fly, eyes closed and listening to the gentle thrum of the idle engines reverberating through the deck plating. He was so close to finding Lys that he could practically smell the gentle perfume of her hair, almost feel the warmth of her soft skin and the taste of her lips. And yet he was still so far. Arianne Simons could have done practically anything with his beloved. Finally he took a deep breath and looked down at the battered form of Joriquos Bos. "I ought ta kill ya," he said softly, watching the fear in Bos' eyes. "Or give you to the authorities. But I'm guessing the first would bring me trouble and the second would do you no harm, given who your da is."

"You are already in trouble, sir," Bos said defiantly. Iskrin slapped him again.

"You don't seem to understand Mr. Bos. None of this ever happened. An' if it did, then I may as well kill you. Are we clear?"

Bos stared at the captain for a moment before nodding slowly. "We are clear," he said finally.

Somehow Iskrin doubted that was the case, but he had no intention of returning to Sihnon once this was over in any case. "Good," he said. "So I ain't gonna kill ya, despite the pain you caused me and mine. But I am gonna leave you a measure of Three Hills justice." He glanced up at Sam who took hold of Bos' narrow shoulders in his meaty hands and held him still. Iskrin took his knife and knelt in front of the artist, unlacing the man's britches. Bos' watched him, abject terror etched into his face, his breathing ragged with fear. "This is how we deal with rapists where I come from," Iskrin growled, setting to work as Joriquos Bos screamed.

The guttural sounds of agony that rang out of the Unlikely To Fly would have turned the stomachs of any passers by had the boat not been parked on a remote patch of land some miles out of town. Later, as her atmospheric engines streamed plumes of smoke and lifted the metal hulk into the darkening sky, anyone in the area would have seen a man staggering away from where the boat had been parked, the front of his trousers bloody and tears of pain and rage streaming from his eyes. Had they been there to hear him, they would have heard his sobbing, choking whispers of "No, oh god no." But there was no one around.

Four days later, Joriquos Bos returned to Sihnon high society clad in the finest golden lace, deftly flattering and complimenting his way through an ambassadorial reception; graciously accepting praise and agreeing to paint over a dozen portraits; blaming his unfortunate broken nose on a skiing accident and wearing gloves to hide his missing finger. He hid the pain well, and the rage. Not a one of the ambassador's guests noticed any change in his demeanor or his charm. None, at least, except the ambassador's wife, who found him outside the party in the gardens, bent over and holding his groin.

"Are you OK, my dear?" she asked sweetly.

Bos looked up, trying to straighten. "Oh yes, quite alright," he said kindly, flashing her a smile. "I was just looking at the ground here."

"Oh," she said, concern in her voice for the dashing young artist. "Have you lost something? I'm sure the girls would be glad to help you look."

Bos smiled weakly. "More than you know," he answered, a grimace of pain and loss on his face and murder in his heart.

I have known tranquility

[image credit: http://www.williamlewispaintings.net/oil-painting-valley-view.html]

“You’ve gained weight,” the fat man sitting idly across the table from him intoned over his beer. “Going soft?”

Iskrin looked up and shook his head briefly, smiling. “No, Sam. Not soft.” He took a sip of his own beer and glanced around the small tap room one more time to check that he hadn’t missed anything in the last three or four glances. “How about you, Sam? You’re looking a little well-fed yourself.”

Truth be told, Sam had gone from being stocky to being plump. The man must have been in his late thirties or early forties, but almost a decade on Sihnon had taken its toll on his body. Altogether too much pleasure had been had. “I have gone soft,” Sam admitted, grinning. “Trading fine art, antiquities and furniture tends to make a man lose the edge, you know?”

Iskrin nodded, apparently agreeing but fairly certain that Sam would have gone to fat whatever trade he’d found for himself. He took another sip of his beer, trying to ignore the knot of anxiety in his stomach, trying to keep the conversation light for now. He hadn’t seen Sam in three or maybe four years. Sam was a war veteran who had found that trading art stolen during the war was a darned sight easier than trying to make an honest living. He’d gone honest since, but it was his dishonest side that had thrown him and Iskrin together originally.

When the 18-year-old Iskrin had arrived on Sihnon all those years ago with fire in his heart and a desperate need to track down the boat captain and find his lost love, Sam had taken him under his wing and offered to help. Looking back, Sam’s generosity at the time had probably had more to do with the fact that Iskrin claimed the boat had been full of rare art (unusually true) than that he wanted to help a fellow human being. Yet, somehow Iskrin’s plight had managed to find that last shred of humanity the war had left Sam and from that day to this, he had kept his eyes and ears open for sign of Lys.

And now he had called.

“I’m guessing you want me to get to the point?” Sam asked finally in a smooth Londinium accent with a hint of Sihnon, fingering his beer glass nervously. “You aren't going to like it, Isk. Trust me.”

Iskrin nodded, controlling the knot in his stomach with an iron will. “Quit with the dramatics and just tell me,” he growled quietly, barely able to remain calm in this very public setting.

Sam nodded, taking a gulp of beer and then sitting up straight to look Iskrin firmly in the eyes. “Sorry,” he said. “I know this is hard.”

Iskrin managed to restrain himself from reaching across the table and shaking the man screaming ‘just tell me’. Instead he nodded and clasped his hands together tightly on his lap.

“It’s the darndest thing,” Sam began, his rich voice carrying across the small space between them. “I bought a painting by Joriquos Bos last week. You know him?”

Iskrin shook his head. “No. Does it matter?”

Sam laughed. “Yes it matters. Patience my friend; you need the story.”

“Your stories take hours, Sam. I need to find Lys.”

“And you will,” Sam said, taking another gulp of beer and gazing nervously about the room. “Anyway, Joriquos Bos,” he continued, “is an extremely famous portrait painter here on Sihnon. He’s painted everyone who’s anyone. But what most people don’t know is that he started out doing landscapes.”

Iskrin’s eyes narrowed slightly. “I ain’t seein’ how this is relevant,” he growled.

“You will.” Sam took another gulp of beer and Iskrin wondered what was making the man so nervous. He couldn’t be that worried about the news he had to deliver. Whatever the truth, it couldn’t be any worse than the horrors Iskrin had imagined as he lay listening to the rumble of the Unlikely’s engines, dreaming of the nightmares his lost love had suffered.

“OK, you were talking about landscapes,” Iskrin said finally, urging the fat man to go on.

Sam smiled nervously and then continued. “Yeah. And he made a tour of the less salubrious core planets in his younger days – some of the border worlds too. One of them was Three Hills.” Sam paused, watching Iskrin’s face for a reaction. “He painted a landscape there called I have known tranquility. It’s a pretty simple piece – depicts a valley with a town nestling in the bottom of it. Usual stuff.” Sam paused for another gulp, gathering his courage before continuing. “The town," he said slowly, studying Iskrin, "was called Bartholomew."

And this time, Iskrin did react. At the mention of the name of his hometown he tensed, his muscles going stiff and his heart racing. “You’re sure?” he asked, almost breathless with fear.

Sam nodded. “Yes, he painted your home town.” The fat man paused to signal a waitress that he needed another beer. Iskrin sat staring at his own glass, his mind turning over and over. Of course, he thought to himself, a painter painting Bartholemew could mean nothing, just coincidence.

“When?” Iskrin asked at last.

Sam's eyes flicked back from scouring the room. “When what?”

“When did he paint it?”

Sam looked a way for a moment, anxiously searching again for sign of the beer he’d ordered as he muttered, “where’s that damned waitress?”

“When did he paint it Sam?” Iskrin leaned across the table, his eyes fixed on those of the war vet-turned-dandy sitting across from him.

“I ain’t sure, mind,” Sam began, his original accent coming briefly to the fore as his nerves got the better of him. “But it all fits. You know?”

Iskrin placed his hands very slowly on the table, palms down. The willpower he used to control his nerves shocked even him and as he spoke, his voice was flat and calm. “Tell me what you suspect, Sam, or so help me God I will beat it out of you.”

Sam looked at the disheveled captain sitting in front of him. His eyes were red with lack of sleep and worry. His clothes looked not to have been changed in some days and he smelled as though he hadn’t bathed in even longer. Sam sighed inwardly. The information that he had discovered in the past week had nearly broken his heart, so what it was about to do to Iskrin he couldn’t imagine. For more than a decade he’d searched for a sign of Lys to no avail. His art dealings had taken him to most core worlds and some beyond and he’d never so much as found a trace of her. And now he knew why.

“Iskrin,” Sam said reluctantly, “I will tell you, my friend. But I have to explain it my way.”

Iskrin nodded, forcing himself to relax back into the leather-upholstered seat beneath him. “Sorry,” he whispered.

Sam looked at him for a long moment before continuing. As he began speaking, the waitress arrived with his beer and Sam swigged near half of it down like a man fresh out of the desert.

“The painting is of Bartholemew," he began quickly, wanting to get the tale out now. "It looks pastoral because Bos wanted it to be so, but he has always been a stickler for detail, so he couldn’t help but include the radio mast, despite his best intentions." Iskrin nodded. "Thing is, Isk,” Sam said carefully, “the mast has three aerials.”

Iskrin let out a breath that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, his mind suddenly afire and his belly feeling like a stone had just been dropped into it. “You’re certain?” he asked urgently and then shook his head irritably. “No, of course you’re certain.”

Sam nodded. “So here’s what we know,” he said, his voice slower now. “The Bartholomew radio mast had two aerials up until two days before the Merry Bitch landed on Three Hills; the day the boat landed the town was celebrating its new triple-link to the Cortex."

"My da was mighty proud of that third arial," Iskrin confirmed, his mind slipping back for a moment to the memory of the shindig the town had thrown to celebrate the increased bandwidth.

Sam smiled. "So you told me," he said before continuing, counting off his points on his fingers. "We also know that the boat was loaded with rare art the likes of which no boat should ever hold. Least not a boat like that.” Sam made a sour face. “Two days after landing, the captain and his crew raped and pillaged their way through your town, destroying everything, including the radio mast. Yet somehow," Sam continued, his voice punctuating the facts, "Joriquos Bos managed to paint Bartholomew at some point within the two days that it had a three-aerial radio tower.”

Iskrin’s face was grim, his teeth clenched and his jaw hard as was his custom whenever he was seeking to control the rage inside him. “It’s not a coincidence,” he growled; statement rather than question.

“No, it’s not,” Sam confirmed, his eyes cast down, his sweaty hands gripping his beer glass like a life preserver. "Here's the thing, Isk. Bos was planet hopping on the Merry Bitch, doing paintings while the crew extorted the border worlders. In return for passage, he was offering them his personal protection should any of the worlds complain. His father is high, high up in Alliance central command."

Iskrin furrowed his brow, a look of disgust on his face. “How do you know?” he asked flatly.

Sam finally looked up, meeting Iskrin's gaze. “I spoke to Bos," he said, wringing his hands nervously. "He’s outside in the trunk of my car.”