Corporate Pain: Dark Divider, #2

By Callum Cordeaux

Daniel Sarcher is following his wife across the Palladin Elandor system and headed for a showdown with Milos Constant on the planet Elandros. To recover Debra from the clutches of the mining oligarch Daniel is prepared to bring the ruling corporate elite to their knees. But it may all be too late as Milos' plans to resurrect the ancient fued between the Palladians and Elantrans enters a dangerous new phase that threatens to split the cosmos.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Callum Cordeaux
• Release date: Sep 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781519985224

Callum Cordeaux

Callum Cordeaux is a part time writer, part time surveyor living in Toowoomba in southern Queensland. His writing passions involve a deep love affair with science fiction and good crime thrillers.  He can be contacted on facebook at www.facebook.com/callum.cordeaux or on twitter. 

Book preview

Chapter 1

Milos Constant stood at the curved meta-glass window, his eyes on the boiling sea hundreds of meters below. Every so often a massive wave would crawl up the basalt face and wash mightily across the glass only to be pushed back down as if by the driving rain from above. The window was just one of hundreds of curved viewpoints that offered a splendid view of the edge of the Sea of Rage.

Constant’s magnificent house, Baraclore, was perched on the face of an enormous sea cliff, programmed to automatically climb the wall to avoid the tidal surges when any of the moons became aligned. Baraclore wasn’t a small house and in the thirteen siders since Milos had ordered it built it had worn an enormous furrow three kilometers wide across the face of the basalt. Whenever the rock was deemed too damaged to hold the teb enhanced pitons the house would automatically shift side wards and start a new path down the stone.

Milos was unconcerned about environmental damage on a rock that was under constant bombardment by the elements. He loved Elandros. It was a part of his heart and soul. The elemental chaos appealed to his nature. Good things come only to those who are prepared to destroy in order to build something better.

Milos turned to the other man sitting at the long mopewood table. Gaspard Constant was a handsome man who appeared little older than his son. His skin was a lighter shade of Divider grey than his son’s, his hair the color of dark stone. He might have been an older brother were it not for the patronizing air.

Are you still following the schedule, Milos? Gaspard asked.

Huh, Milos turned from the window, "oh, yes. So far we are following my plan. We have enough raw materials to complete the current production run. The problems will come when we commission the last of the dreadnoughts. Our next production run will slow, as it must, until we bring the new smelter on line."

God willing that should happen fast, Gaspard said with a frown. If you cannot get this fleet commissioned before next sider we risk discovery. You do know what the ultimate penalty of that would be?

Of course, father. All ventures have risks. However I have changed some features of the workforce which I am confident will bring greater productivity.

Have you hired those Morabitans I suggested?

No. I have changed the pay structure, including a daily allowance of one hundredth of an ounce of Pack’s Divider. You’d have to see it to believe the difference it has made to the workforce.

What? You seek to bring Galactic Charter on your head?

Relax, father. There is nothing written in the contract. I have arranged an intermediary to transact the arrangement as a precaution. In the unlikely event that what we are doing is discovered we will be covered. I have written the contracts in such a way that the entire venture cannot be traced back to us.

I don’t like it.

It is the only way to keep them happy. You know there were some who wanted to break the contract, for family reasons they said. Only so many workers can have an unfortunate accident, father, before something starts to stink. You know the contracts said the construction crews had to stay on site until the fleet was completed. This will keep them happy just that bit longer. Who wouldn’t want to live longer, be smarter, be stronger. You can bet there won’t be any of them who’ll feel like talking. An extra sider in exchange for perhaps a hundred siders of extra life

Be it on your head, boy.

Isn’t that the way it has always been, father, Milos’ voice took on a carping tone. If I’d left it up to you you’d take the safer route. Profits would dwindle. We would never have had this opportunity to strike so soon.

Milos could see his father didn’t like direct criticism. Gaspard changed the direction of the conversation.

How is that wife of yours?

You mean Debra, don’t you?

I know her name. How has she been? Will we be seeing her in public again soon?

Don’t harp, father. Debra is a strong woman, as you know. She will do what she wants.

You should re-establish your control, my son.

Milos’ face was unreadable. Inwardly he laughed bitterly to himself. The only true control he had over his wife had been the threat made against her long dead husband and children. With that leverage gone she defied him in almost every way possible. It had been months since he had been with her, but she would eventually become sick of never leaving the stasis field.

Is that all you wanted to see me for, Father?

For the moment, Milos. Gaspard sounded resigned. When will you come to see your mother?

I saw her last minim. I am a busy man, father.

Aren’t we all? My workload has increased with the trouble from that blasted rabble in Stem City. It is like a production line going through the court these days. The executioner is talking about repetitive strain injury.

If the blasted Stem City Police could catch Deaf Willy the whole thing would end, Milos responded.

No it wouldn’t. The insurrection is spreading. Someone calling himself Deaf Freddie has started burning shops in New México and another cell appears to be operating in Fremantle.

For Mother’s sake. Don’t they appreciate how a society is supposed to operate? If they burn the shops they only spite themselves. If they want jobs there have to be businesses to employ them. Why don’t some of them get off their lazy backsides and start businesses of their own?

Gaspard raised an eyebrow at his son’s outburst; he’d heard it all before. Not just from Milos but from nearly everyone he came into contact with. Only the Stem City police chief, Gunter Kluger, seemed to have an opposing point of view. It seemed the problem was insurmountable in the short term but Milos would soon start hiring many men once the fleet came on line. The insurrectionists would make ideal cannon fodder.

Gaspard stood and held out his hand to his son, I must be going. I am due in court in twenty micro-siders. May Mother God look favorably on your venture.

God willing, Milos said automatically as he gripped his father’s hand.

Come for lunch tomorrow, Gaspard said holding Milos’ hand firmly. It wasn’t a request.

Gaspard turned and stepped through the beautifully crafted mopewood door as it slid open in front of him. He followed the long corridor to the aircar entrance. As he stepped into his Fleeter he looked back at his son standing, legs apart, arms behind his back with the backdrop of water washed glass behind him. Gaspard knew Milos hadn’t been happy in past weeks and he knew with a father’s instinct it wasn’t just the issue of the Atlantis smelter that was working on his son. Something was happening closer to home. It was that blasted woman for sure. Strong will in a female was a deadly trait no matter how beautiful she was.

As soon as his father had left Milos walked to his office and stabbed the button on his intercom. He fumed as he waited for Melba to answer.

Yes, sir? her insipid voice grated on his raw nerves.

What did Vesper want?

He said he was coming to see you, sir.

When? Milos asked in alarm.

He must be nearly here now, sir.

For Mother’s sake, woman. Why didn’t you tell me?

You said you were not to be disturbed, sir.

He broke the connection and yelled at the soundproofed wall, God dammit, then felt immediately contrite at his childish blasphemy. What in hell’s name was Vesper Magus doing here?

By the time Milos had taken the walk to the aircar dock Magus was already rolling his portly frame from the deep seats of the Lix hire car. Unaware that Milos was close by he proceeded to rub down the creases in his skin tight green suit before turning to enter the house.

Mister Constant, sir, he stepped back in shock.

Vesper, why are you here? Milos asked, not offering his hand in greeting.

I had something very important to tell you, sir.

Couldn’t it wait till I came for my eighth of a sider visit?

It is about the smelter, Mister Constant. Vesper’s round face was hard to read but Milos knew he was worried about something. If he had come this far it must be bad.

Come through. We’ll talk in my office. He led the overweight and sweating mine manager through the house, locking the office door behind them.

He didn’t offer Magus a chair but sat down in his twenty-five thousand credit Electroshaper Director’s Special.

What is it, Magus?

I hate to say this, sir, but your smelter may not have been victim of Palladian sabotage.

Don’t be stupid, man, what are you talking about?

The day the smelter burned, a shipment was delivered that had more than just ore on board.

What? Constant roared. The fat man stepped back in fear.

It’s true, sir. We have footage.

Of what? Milos Constant’s voice betrayed his disbelief.

Of a miner escaping Lectos on a pod.

That is not possible. Why would a mind clipped Jemel decide to leave. Show me the recording.

As Vesper Magus pulled the wafer from his pocket, he said, We don’t think he was a Jemel, sir. He handed the recording to Constant who was quick to strip the teb coating and slide the hard copy into his desktop reader. The wall lit up and he saw an overall clad miner crossing the engine room on a hover-platform with a large container on the deck between his legs.

The platform was aimed at the opening to the outer airlock and just before it reached the access tunnel the man looked furtively around before taking the machine into the tunnel. The next shot was of the man tugging on a red and white suit. Milos stopped the feed and looked at the man’s physique. In his naked state he was no Jemel, just as Magus had said, nor was he a Pingele. He had the telltale sign of Divider in his darkening skin. The man was almost as grey as Milos was himself.

Who is he? he asked Magus as he started the recording again.

We do not know, sir. He is undoubtedly human. I have shown the staff this part of the footage but none could identify him.

Milos sat there mesmerized at the precise way in which the man modified the helmet of the suit then in surprise as he pulled on the second suit. As the man filled the second suit with the liquid he stopped the footage in mid pour.

What is he pouring between the suits?

We think it must have been water, sir. You know, to cushion himself from the effect of the thrust.

Who is we, Magus? How many people know about this?

Just myself and Kalia.

Oh God. Why did you tell Kalia? You might as well have told the entire workforce.

There is no way known the man could have survived, sir. That was a new pulse pod he chose. It was making the journey to Atlantis in less than one hundredth of a sider at an average of thirty-five gravitonic units.

Thank God for small mercies. So you think he may have taken something on board that sabotaged the smelter?

Yes, sir. When he leaves the airlock there is clearly something on the floor of the hover platform. We believe he carried a package of calithium in an obvious suicide mission.

Two wasps chased an unidentified ovoid from the smelter. What about that, Magus?

It must have been a coincidence, sir.

It was no coincidence. I saw the vectors. That ship was running with a hard pilot. It wasn’t on drop out timers. The fact that they ran is what is suspicious, and what’s more a number of tourists claim to have seen Dominic Bolkus in the station before the fire. Something is going on, Magus, and I don’t like it.

Milos ran the recording to the end. He saw what Vesper Magus was referring to. The light was bad and it was hard to tell what the bundle was. It could easily have been the man’s overalls bundled up on the floor but it could also have been a package of calithium ore. He let the images run to their conclusion. The external camera on the airlock door picked up the receding hover platform as it shot away at full acceleration. Milos almost flinched as the enormous bulk of the pod took the hover platform and the man in mid-flight. Nothing could have survived a collision with that thing, not even a hardened miner cushioned by a suit full of water.

I don’t know. This is very strange, Magus. That man was surely dead. Do you have any more surveillance of him in the mine?

Magus froze ever so slightly as he remembered the footage he had viewed back on Lectos, of the man who had sneaked past the mind clipper. The man who had for some reason decided to hide inside the mine.

No, sir. There was nothing apart from two shifts earlier. This man was part of the team that performed the regular maintenance on the atmosphere bubble.

Yes, it was obvious he knew his way around the facility. I will keep this recording, Magus. You had best make your way back to Lectos. We should have a new smelter to replace Atlantis within a half sider. I have commissioned two others to come on line a little after, so keep the miners active.

I couldn’t stop them if I tried, Mister Constant.

Have there been any deaths?

No, sir, and we are averaging two hundred and eighty new miners per quarter. Production is increasing rapidly so we must resume firing as soon as possible.

I am sending thirty new pods; they should arrive just after you return. You will resume firing but you will need to reprogram the destiny points to impact the Point Senner and Karbolesque smelters. They will be instructed to increase output to compensate for the extra ore load.

Is that safe, sir? You know what will happen if you overload the cores.

It is safe, Magus, Milos snapped. He didn’t appreciate a worm like Magus articulating his greatest fear. They had to process the ore or the miners would become idle for the first time ever. But the risk was huge. If a smelter core was to be overloaded the controlled reaction would slow and parts of the core would cool and the liquid metal would enter the centrifuges in a semi-solid state. Should that happen the whole plant would need to be shut down and recommissioned. No small feat with the likelihood that at least five to seven loaded pods would be en-route to the dormant smelter at any point in time.

Yes, sir. Well then, I’ll just go back to Lectos then.

Thank you, Vesper. That will be best. Constant didn’t rise preferring to sit back and let the office chair massage the knots from his tension bound muscles. He waved a hand in dismissal at Vesper Magus and the little man stepped through the door and closed it behind him.

Constant thought about the conversation. Thankfully Magus didn’t know the full extent of the risks inherent in the operation. Magus was a seedy little man with a shady past and hadn’t been perturbed at the thought of stealing mine workers through the time traps, or of illegally acquiring Packs Divider to improve productivity. On one level his thinking was similar to Milos Constant’s. A means to an end was how he thought of the Lectos solution. The rest of the operation however, was simply too big for Vesper’s limited vision. The sheer, bloody minded audacity of the big picture was more than most people could handle and that was why so few knew all the details. Loose lips would cost profits and ultimate victory.

Constant tapped the control pad and started the recording again. He pulled the shot up at the same point as before where the man was struggling into the spacesuit. The miner’s body was beautifully muscled and there was a smooth economy about the way he moved. The cameras in the airlock were excellent and Constant pulled the shot in closer and looked harder at the man. He scrolled up so the face was fully captioned by the wall screen. What would the man look like without the beard? Constant was beginning to see something familiar in the face in spite of the hair.

His fingers worked on the neural interface and the computer showed Milos Constant a simulated enhancement, the face stripped of the hair. He sat staring at the image for long seconds. He was disappointed; the face was one he had never seen before. He panned away to get the face and body together. Then something clicked. He instantly zoomed in on the man’s left shoulder which was in shot. A scar was visible on the grey skin and it was a scar Milos had seen before. A scar very similar to the one Milos’ wife had on her left shoulder. She said it was a smallpox vaccination, whatever that was.

Milos rubbed his fingers across the interface in something like desperation. A series of opinions crossed the face of the man subtly altering his features each time an opinion took effect.

After five opinions Milos stopped the simulation and sat staring at the image. He shook his head in wonder. What did it mean? Somehow he had followed them through. It was impossible, he knew, but the image was proof. But what did it mean? Could he have survived? Highly unlikely if what Magus had said was true but too much was at stake for Milos to consider the man dead a second time.

Milos angrily shut down the simulation. The action of the massager in the chair was annoying him and he stood up his mind in turmoil. What was he to do? Everything pointed to the death of Daniel Sarcher, but what if he hadn’t died in the smelter?

Milos looked out at the Sea of Rage, he was above the crashing waves but somehow felt as if he had just been dropped into that wild sea. He knew one thing that had happened. His wife had betrayed their secret. Sarcher was proof of that.

Chapter 2

Debra couldn’t believe it. The unthinkable had happened. She sat staring at the visual display on the wall of her bedroom, the figures meant little to her but she always checked them off against her records. Part of it was a pathetic desire to cling to the person she once was, a woman in control of her own life. She had almost forgotten what her life had been; a partner in a relationship that was as much about sharing a business as well as the intimacies of life.

Daniel had never been the perfect husband but she wouldn’t have traded him for the world. She had loved him right to the end, right till the day she gave him up. She had given Danny up but she was damned if she’d give up every facet of her life that she held dear, which was why she was sitting on the end of her bed staring at the bank figures displayed upon her wall screen hardly daring to hope they were true.

It was known for Marcel and Marcel to make a mistake but none had been acknowledged by the bankers in the past ninety siders. Debra had checked the bank’s credentials in earlier times when she had been free of the time trap that so dominated her life now.

The minute debit charge stood out through its insignificance rather than the locality code which pinpointed the transaction to the external habitat of Cavill’s Corner. The thing which most concerned her though was the knowledge that Karos and Gwyneth were at the Corner on the day in question. Perhaps there had been a mix-up between the children’s accounts and the access Milos allowed her into Constant Mining’s general account. Even so the excitement which gripped her to her soul was palpable.

Then reality began to set in. The transaction had been made over four weeks earlier; she tried hard not to think in fractions of a sider. The children had returned from the viewing of the solar eclipse three weeks earlier and surely if Daniel had followed her through the time tunnel as she had dreamed he might she couldn’t understand how he hadn’t made his presence known to her.

The irrational hope that had surfaced was starting to sink and die again. She knew realistically that if Daniel had come through the tunnel he was either dead by now or wishing he was. Debra had taken a long time to come to grips with the society she now lived in. She had been given infrequent glimpses of how the bulk of the population lived on Elandros and she knew that life was only easy for a very small and elite portion. In a way she wished she was living in the squalor of the slums. That way she’d die relatively quickly instead of the slow, slow torment she faced inside the time field. In stasis her spirit would die long before her body did. Perhaps she’d become a beautiful deathless husk like Crucia, Milos’ mother.

Turn it off, Doria, she instructed, lying back on the bed. She would have cried if she could. The wall reverted to an off world pastoral scene that could never exist on Elandros.

Is there anything else, my lady? Doria asked.

Yes. Debra’s reply was dreadful in its lack of hope.

What, my lady?

Take this bloody field generator off my back.

Doria looked at her mistress with sadness in her eye. I would if I could, my lady. You know I would but it is only for your husband to release you, if you will have it.

Debra looked at her handmaiden, their eyes locked. Debra had discussed the issue with Doria on many occasions; she wondered if Milos knew what they said between each other. Debra had made it clear that Milos would not come close for many years, and only he could release the time trap. The mechanism was linked to Debra’s brain wave but only in the presence of her husband would the trap release itself, and only if Debra willed it. She had no desire to grant Milos his conjugal rights, not while he required her to remain in the trap at all other times. It was the ultimate situation for a possessive husband. A subjugated wife kept beautiful for eternity, ravenous for freedom but only granted that freedom when the husband wanted to use her body.

Debra’s only avenue of protest lay in her ability to deny Milos access. She knew she was strong enough to keep it up for years but life was so damned boring inside the bubble and she knew Milos could live for hundreds, if not thousands of years. She didn’t know if she’d have the resolve for it.

In the months since Milos had bought her back she’d grown tired of the sight of the same gown, beautiful though it was, and she longed for the taste of food in her mouth even though her body had no need of it inside the trap. She longed to sleep so that her mind would not work on. But rather than go mad like her beautiful mother-in-law, she vowed to think her way out of the mess she found herself in. There had to be a solution, and it could be just around the next mental corner.

***

Daniel Sarcher sat in the bar of the Casa Moro Hotel in Stem City. It wasn’t just around the corner from where Debra lay on her bed thinking but it was on the same planet and the reality did something to him. He realized that he was happy and it was because he was close. He just had to find her.

You look thirsty, sir. What can I get you? The bartender was a large man, dressed in black and white check and reminded Daniel of an overweight chef.

Scotch and water, thanks, Daniel replied. They were speaking Jemel; it seemed very few people used English in their day to day conversations.

He’d checked into the hotel a half an hour earlier after driving Bolkus’ little hover-car into Stem City from the mountain retreat where he’d been instructed to hide the Shuttledog. The trip down was possibly the most harrowing thing he’d done in the entire journey from Palladia. In spite of a road-skills pinch he’d downloaded from Bolkus’ library he was barely prepared for the sheer speed and volume of the traffic that whipped its way into the enormous spaceport-city. On more than one occasion he’d been on the receiving end of glares and gestures the meanings of which were extremely obvious even to his ignorant mind.

Are you hungry? the bartender asked as he deposited the whisky on the counter. Daniel picked it up and savored the smell as he considered the question.

What have you got? he asked. The Casa Moro wasn’t what he regarded as an upmarket establishment but it was far better lodging that many of the city dwellers had to contend with if the trip through the suburbs was anything to go by.

Most of the dwellings he’d passed couldn’t have been called houses; most wouldn’t be regarded as shanties back home. The edges of the vast, grey city resembled an enormous used container lot with rusting box stacked upon rusting box as far as the eye could see. Daniel had wondered whether the lower levels were regarded as better accommodation or was it the upper ones. It amazed him that people actually lived in the things. At least they’d be kept clean on the outside; it had rained constantly since he’d landed on the planet.

Outside the hotel the rain teemed down, the streets doubled as waterways above which the vehicles skimmed. According to the information he’d been given on Elandros it never stopped raining in Stem except for days on which it hailed.

Stem City had been built where it was because, geologically, it was the most stable point on the planet, a plateau at the top of an enormous ancient granite dyke that would resist the shifting of the planetary mantle for millennia to come. In spite of the rain and darkness Stem City had developed into the planet’s mega city and stretched over hundreds of thousands of acres and was home to fifty-five million miserable Elantrans.

"Tender Frettle and salad sandwiches