The Long Forever. Eugene Lambert

get our break at an outdoor bazaar full of blue-lipped stallholders shouting their wares through clouds of misting breath. A bundled-up Barzahk merchant woman beckons for Murdo to join her in the shadowy back of her tented stall. A wood stove glows there. We go to follow him, but her assistant – as wide as I am tall – blocks our path.

      Sky’s teeth chatter. ‘Who’d want to live here?’

      ‘Not me, that’s for sure,’ I say.

      By the time Murdo reappears we’re nearly frozen solid. As we stumble through the snow back to the landing field, Murdo tells us he has good and bad news. Sky being Sky wants to hear the bad first. Murdo tells us the woman isn’t a buyer. Not because the darkblende could be Syndicate, more because she just hasn’t got the funds we’d be looking for.

      ‘The good news is she hates the Syndicate. Her only son had taken over her business. Syndicate guys came calling and the fool talked back to them. They gutted him. Made her watch.’

      ‘Lovely,’ Sky says, shivering. ‘How’s that good?’

      ‘It means she hates them enough to want to spite them. Gave me a lead. Somebody who still does a bit of business behind their back. And he’s . . . not far away.’

      We both notice his hesitation.

      ‘But?’ Sky says sharply.

      Murdo pulls a wry face. ‘But he operates out of the Ark. It’s a rough old joint. And I’m a wanted man there.’

      ‘Wanted?’ I say.

      ‘For killing a man. It was self-defence. He cheated me. But it’s worth the risk anyway. Happened when I was your age, so I don’t suppose anyone will know me now.’

      ‘You don’t suppose ?’ I say.

      ‘He’s old now and ugly,’ Sky says, winking at me.

      ‘Hey, less of the ugly,’ Murdo says. As Barzahk’s bitter wind slices through us, there’s a spring in Murdo’s step. My guess is he’s already spending his share in his head.

      Our take-off and climb back to orbit are uneventful. By the time Murdo’s set our new course I’m almost warm again. Sky’s still bundled up though, and wracked by coughs.

      ‘Why don’t you go lie down?’ I say. She’s sick enough already and could do without catching a chill.

      But all I get is glared at and told to mind my own business.

      I ask Murdo if this Ark place is our best chance to sell the darkblende, or our last chance? He shrugs, says it’s either that or we’ll have to risk approaching the Syndicate. He says not to worry, that he’s got a good feeling.

      Sky snorts so hard she starts coughing.

      Later, curled up together in the sleep bay we share, Sky sighs so loudly that she wakes me up.

      ‘Something wrong?’ I ask.

      She wriggles around to face me. ‘If we do manage to flog the darkblende, will you still help me find Tarn?’

      ‘Course. Gave you my word, didn’t I?’

      ‘Yeah, well. Words are easy, and creds are tempting.’

      Now it’s my turn to sigh, and I make a bit of a meal of it. In the gloom we’ve made by rigging up a curtain, Sky’s breath is warm on my face.

      ‘Okay, okay. But what if this Ark guy turns his nose up at the darkblende like the rest? Selling it back to the Syndicate seems crazy. They’d kill us.’

      ‘Murdo’s sure it won’t come to that.’

      ‘He’s not sure, he’s just greedy. Creds are all he cares about.’

      Hah. Murdo says Sky only cares about her sister, Tarn, but she doesn’t need to hear that. Instead I share a thought that’s crawled around the back of my mind for a while. ‘Maybe the stuff ’s more trouble than it’s worth. Maybe we’d be better off ditching it before it gets us killed.’

      Sky coughs again, but not as painfully as before.

      ‘How would we get to Enshi Four without any creds?’

      ‘We sell the freighter instead. A go-fast smuggler ship like this must be worth a good few creds. With our split of the proceeds, we can do as we like.’

      I feel rather than see Sky shaking her head.

      ‘Nah. No way will Murdo or the others go for that. Even if they did, what if this is a Syndicate freighter? Who would dare buy it off us? Nobody, that’s who.’

      Oh yeah. Same problem. Wish I’d kept my mouth shut.

      She pulls me closer. ‘Guess we’ll just have to hope Murdo manages to sell the darkblende on this Ark.’

      ‘You don’t believe in hope.’

      ‘I don’t believe in dying either. It still happens.’

      We’re out of dee-emm and back in regular space. Our instruments tell us the Ark is coming up fast, but even with my sharp nublood seeing, it’s still only a small sun-licked dot compared to the giant world it orbits. Murdo’s working on giving our freighter a false identity.

      ‘How about the Nagasaki Maru ?’ he asks.

      ‘Whatever,’ Sky snaps. ‘Set it before they ping us.’

      This Ark space station is no half-forgotten backwater like Shanglo and Barzahk. We can’t just fly in and set down unannounced. First we have to identify ourselves and satisfy their security forces we’re not blacklisted.

      Murdo gives his screen one last tap. ‘Okay! We’re now the free-trader Nagasaki Maru out of New Kyoto.’

      ‘Nagasaki Maru !’ I like the way it stretches my mouth.

      The freighter’s hacked comm lets us choose to show up on scans as any one of a dozen legit transports. Murdo says when we’re inside the Ark’s hangar we’ll tuck ourselves away and nobody will be arsed to check.

      Now our comm lights up red as we’re hit with an identity request from the Ark. And it stays red for longer than I can hold my breath, which can’t be good.

      ‘You sure you did it right?’ Sky asks Murdo.

      The light flicks green. A deep robot voice pours itself into the flight deck. ‘Nagasaki Maru, this is the Ark. Final approach authorised. Proceed to deck zero, bay eleven.’

      Murdo rocks back in his seat, grins and makes a fist.

      There’s nothing to do now but sit tight and watch the Ark grow slowly larger ahead of us. It’ll be over an hour before we make our final approach. Cam, Anuk and some other kids are crammed into the back of the flight deck again. The rest are asleep in the crew compartment. Their lack of interest in approaching a new world, or worry at what might happen if things go wrong, blows my mind.

      ‘What’s this Ark then?’ I ask Murdo.

      ‘You’ll see for yourself as we get closer,’ he says, leaning back into his seat, ‘but the thing is big enough to be an asteroid. Half of it was already a wreck when it showed up here, but that still leaves plenty of room. They say you can live your whole life there and not walk every deck.’

      I sit up straighter. ‘It showed up here?’

      ‘Who wrecked it?’ Sky says.

      But Murdo won’t be rushed. He tells us how, forty standard-years ago, an outbound mining support ship was the first to spot the incoming spaceship. After hailing it and getting no answer, they see the damage and figure she’s a derelict, either abandoned or its crew dead. ‘They get all excited, figuring they can claim salvage and have her for scrap. But just as they’re about to do a hard docking and cut their way inside, the derelict fires up some kind of drive system and parks itself in orbit here.’