Earth Singer

CHAPTER SIX

Vesta blinked in vain, trying to focus as the bright light seared into her eyes, obscuring the shadowed room around her, and the hidden figures she knew must be there.

'Whoever you are,' she coughed out through a hoarse throat, 'you're in more trouble than you know.' Vesta's voice was a little short of confident, as her numb fingers probed at the restraints that fixed her hands firmly to the chair she found herself in. She took in her surroundings as best she could. The room was crowded with blurred objects all the same shade of black that refused to come into focus with the light of some lamp beaming squarely into her eyes. She was still in her slagger's uniform, which was even more muck-stained than usual. Her arms and legs were warm and sore, presumably from being dragged into her current position, where she sat firmly fastened to a solid chair. Only her single-platted braid flowed freely down over her right shoulder resting itself in her lap.

'We are in trouble? You were the one following us little Prybach.' Came a thick voice from the shadows. Vesta could not make out a silhouette beyond the light in her face, but she could hear from the strain in the floor plates that it was coming from an equally thick frame. Whoever it was, it was not the same individual she was tracking through the slag-alleys some hours earlier. Or was it hours? She wondered. The hoarseness of her throat told her she might have been out substantially longer than that.

'Where's the little one?' Vesta asked, skipping the unnecessary small talk.

'W-what? There's no one else here...' came the muddled response.

'Forget it Tawn,' a slighter voice, from an unquestionable slighter frame emerged from a corner of the room behind Vesta's left shoulder.

'You said us.'

A frustrated fist pummelled at the wall ahead of Vesta.

'Tawn huh?' Vesta seized on the informal address hoping to gain some power in the conversation. There was an indignant grunt from for the darkness that told her she had hit a nerve. The two voices exchanged testy remarks in a language she didn't recognise for a moment.

Vesta slowly pulled upward with her forearms as quietly as she could, gauging her chances of breaking free of her restraints with force alone. It was no good, all her efforts had done was reveal the elaborate care with which the thick rope had been knotted around her wrists and the arms of the chair. Her feet were no better off, being similarly bound together. She would need more strength than she had in her lean body get out of this.

'Relax Tawn, I'm sure the little Prybach knows more still about us than she is letting on.' This time the frustrated grunt came from Vesta.

A Prybach; was an eight-legged arachnid creature that was common in the Servile sector. Especially around the crowded lower levels of the slag-slums on Servile-IV, where they were known to cling to low ceilings and corridor walls with their big intrusive eyes. What most annoyed Vesta though, was how interminably adorable these furry, bug-eyed creatures were. Fuzzy, skittish and utterly harmless. Hardly the character she was attempting to convey.

'Stop calling me that,' she protested. 'Or untie me and I'll show you what five cycles in the slag pits can do for this Prybach's right-hook.' She followed this with a more obvious tensing at her restraints which remained unmoved, as did her captors.

All Vesta did achieve was a winch of pain from her left temple. That's right, she began to remember. She was stunned, probably by a power-cudgel. Not a standard issue, but some obnoxious improvisation that was more concussive force than sophisticated stun-tech.

It all came flooding back. She had spent the last full rotation moving through the lower-class dens of her previous patrol, searching for that same off-worlder she had chased from the dive bar. She found him, preaching from the top of some cart in a slum market and was following him when she suddenly went down. The same preaching voice, Vesta realised, cut-off her train of thought.

'Oh yes, the right-hook of a slagger, to be avoided I'm sure' replied the shadow with some amusement. 'The right-hook of a Vigile though, now that's something renowned throughout the Regnum.' The words hit Vesta hard. She couldn't remember every detail about how she ended up where she was. But she knew she had no ID with her, she would not have been that careless. Especially when she didn't have the any authority to be where she was. She sighed, as internally as she could; this was not going well.

'No point trying to hide it Vigile, you have no power here. We know who you are, we know you have no official orders to be here, and you... well you know nothing.' The voice traced its way through the darkness, circling in front of Vesta still firmly within the safety of the shadows. The voice was audibly pleased with itself, and it was right to be. 'Now since we know all and you know nothing, let us skip to the part wher...'

At that moment a metallic groaning emanated from somewhere behind Vesta accompanied by the sound hinges screeching in protest and the clank of a heavy door butting up against steel.

'Wait! not the...'

A sudden flash of illuminating neon rays flooded the room bringing every corner and every inhabitant into sharp, colourful relief.

'...lights.' The last word breathed its way out of the diminutive humanoid figure standing arms-length before Vesta, now rubbing his eyes in frustration.

Vesta wasted no time in scanning the room and the figures within it. It was a cramped space that seemed to serve a dozen purposes from the disordered furniture that filled it. She sat facing away from the door which despite her efforts she could not quite crane her neck enough to see. To her left were racks upon racks of spare parts and every kind of greased metal junk. The floor was made up of metal plates and grating while to her left, lockers and a battered dry freeze fought for every inch of available space. Ahead of her a spartan desk and just beyond, crude metal bunks rounded out the cramp room's furnishings, save a myriad of generic boxes and mess.

In the far corner beside the bunks, a hulking mass of muscle was straining to stay contained inside an overextended grubby singlet and equally overwrought utility-trousers. The bulk of a figure had to stoop its thick bovine head, replete with two fierce, forward curving horns, in order to fit into the room at all. Tawn she presumed.

Meanwhile, astride the desk in front of her, a much slighter figure appeared a perfect counter to his companion. Thin, wiry legs dangled from the desk it was perched on. Wearing trousers and boots that appeared two-sizes too large. A plain khaki shirt and green jacket of inexpensive material gave him all the appearance of a street youth in stolen clothes. An idea belied by his facial features which, undisguised by his usual cloak and hood, were at last open to Vesta's trained gaze. Smooth features and easily traced cheekbones led Vesta to assume a similar age to herself, though something in the eyes, deep blue, almost black spoke of greater, or at least harsher years than she had known. The jaw was elongated into a stag-like muzzle confirming that he too was humanoid, but not Terran. Vesta took careful note of two slight scars on the right side of the face that would make him easily identifiable. Finally, there was the faint blue tinge of the skin. Something that the two occupants shared. Wait, not skin, but a fine pelt. That settled it, they were Tramors. Nomads that called no planet their home. Tramors drifted from system to system, usually working the harsh jobs most in the Regnum avoided. Especially Terrans. First the workers, females included as Tramors were known to be stoutly built no matter the sex. Then inevitably followed by the families. Infesting the more miserable corners of a planet. Universally mistrusted. The Tetrarchs demanded loyalty from every system. But Tramor's didn't have a system. They were loyal to no one.

She compartmentalised as much of these descriptions as she could in the short moments she had before her view was completely obscured once more. This time by a tall, silent and darkly robed figure that drew itself closely before her, almost blotting out the light from the ceiling overhead.

An unnaturally guttural voice addressed her.

'Well, look who is finally awake.'