Dragons and Stars, Chapter 17: Getting Into Trouble

After a minute, Hanna and Neal did their best to saunter casually into the bar’s airlock. It unsealed and they stepped out of it into a large dark room filled with booths and smoke. A tousled-looking waitress with no helmet greeted them with a cigarette hanging from her lips and a dark mascara line drawn from ear to ear across her eyes.

Neal saw Mirk sitting at a booth nearby, and two booths away, Grummel’s large form slouched over a table. It’s good it’s so dark in here, thought Neal. He looked at the waitress and motioned to Grummel.

“My friend,” he said through his suit speakers, trying to make his voice sound older. She nodded indifferently and led them to Grummel’s booth. Most of the customers had their helmets off, but some still had theirs on. Neal was relieved that they wouldn’t stand out too much with their tinted helmets still on.

Hanna pulled out a 20-credit coin and handed it to the waitress.

“We’d just like to sit and chat for a bit,” she said.

The waitress pocketed the coin and nodded, clumping away in her thigh-high magboots.

Neal held up his fingers: two, four, six.

Hanna and Grummel typed on their backwrist compads and changed to the new radio frequency.

“Hey guys,” whispered Neal on the radio channel to them, “I’m sitting with my back to Mirk. I’ll take off my helmet and try to listen. You guys search the channels and try to see if he’s on the radio.” They nodded their helmets. The grinding music in the bar grew louder as he slipped his helmet off and put it on the seat next to him. He strained to sort out voices he could hear talking.

“So I said to him, shut up, ya’ know?” The raspy woman’s voice sounded like it could belong to the curly haired blonde with the man in the booth just behind him. He continued flipping through stations.

Just then two astronauts walked out of the airlock and looked around. Neal stared at them through his tinted helmet. The two clomped over to Mirk’s table. Neal peered over his shoulder and stared at them out of the corner of his eyes as they sat down with Mirk. They were dark-haired, bearded individuals, still wearing their helmets. They looked a little savage. A scar etched down from the left eye of one and across his cheek. Spectacles perched on the nose of the other man. They left their helmets on and leaned forward to Mirk. Neal saw one of them hold up one finger but then Mirk’s head blocked his hand.

Neal hit his suit radio button. “It’s in the one-hundreds,” he whispered.

Hanna nodded. “Grummel, you search one-hundred to one-fifty, I’ll search one-fifty to two-hundred,” she said quietly over the radio.

Neal peeked over his shoulder again, he could see Mirk’s back across from the two men. They were talking quietly and intensely. Mirk wrote something on a piece of paper. The men handed Mirk a coin-holder that was sealed. Grummel said, “Ya know, Hanna, et’ could be in the teens, like fifteen. Thet starts wi’ one.” “Quieter,” she whispered. “Good thinking. Neal, can you check ten to nine-teen?” Neal quickly turned to ten and worked his way up. Nothing. He had a thought and switched to channel one.

“Eleven, twelve, thirteen thousand,” said Mirk’s voice. Neal quickly held up just one finger. Hanna and Grummel switched to channel one.

“It’s all there, yes?” asked a deep voice with a slight accent.

“Yes,” said Mirk’s voice a little shakily.

“That money is yours now,” the deep voice said. “But if you double-cross us….”

Grummel inhaled suddenly and then sneezed.

“What was that?” a thinner voice said. The deep voice said something back in a different language. Neal could hear one of them stand up. He pretended to be looking at his compad.

He heard footsteps. The man with the scar from his eye had walked to the other side of the bar’s main room. He walked carefully from booth to booth. At each booth he leaned over and examined the people in the booth. They would look up, start to complain, and see his cruel face and fall silent. He worked his way from booth to booth, staring down the occupants of each booth. The bar fell silent except for the background music, grinding away.

Neal figured if he put his tinted helmet on, the man would only be more suspicious. And probably demand they take their helmets off. He signaled to the others: two-two. They nodded and quickly changed their radio channel to 22.

“If he comes to us here, Mirk will notice us,” Neal said.

“Let’s run for it on three,” said Hanna.

Neal felt his stomach and legs tighten. “Okay,” he said. He breathed a short prayer. Easy to remember God in crunch time, he thought.

“One….two…..three!” said Hanna.

She darted out of her booth towards the airlock. Grummel kicked the table over as he climbed out. Neal pulled a miner trick, clicking off his boots, jumping towards the wall by the booth, and then kicking powerfully off the wall straight towards the airlock. He sailed past Grummel and then Hanna and slammed inside the airlock. He hit the exit button just as Grummel lunged into the airlock and the inner door began to close. Neal saw the man with the scar running toward it, nearly there, pulling something from his pocket. The door closed and air cycled out at the same moment Neal slammed his helmet down on his head and sealed it on. The outer door slid open back onto the night street and its garish lighting and they jumped out. Neal quickly looked around for an object.

“Wait!” he said as Grummel and Hanna were already halfway to the catchwire. “Do you guys have something you can leave behind? A Book, a flashlight, a bottle?”

Hanna reached in a pocket and pulled her Book out and threw it to him like a football pass. He would have argued her choice but they didn’t have time. The airlock door was sliding closed again. He stuck Hanna’s Book in the way and the airlock door slid open again.

“That will keep the inner door from opening,” muttered Neal. But he knew there was probably a side exit nearby. Just then two policemen came around the corner. They saw Neal leaving the Book in the bar door.

“Hey!” they said, coming toward him in their armored suits.

Neal raised his hands. “Oh, thank God!” he said weakly.