God's Bounty Hunter (Biddy Mackay Space Detective Book 1) by T Olivant (reading in the dark .txt) 📕

Biddy looked into Elvis’s dark eyes.  The man was genuinely afraid. “If it’s that important, then let’s find out what it is.”

“How are we going to do that?”

“When you have a question that no one else can answer, what do you do?”

Elvis smiled so that a dimple appeared on his right cheek. “You ask a God.”

They left Francesca at the helm and walked toward the cells.  The corridor was narrow in places and sometimes their shoulders or hips would brush against each other.  Biddy pretended not to notice.

“How should we play it?  You want me to be good cop or bad cop?”

“Elvis, you’ve been watching too many Earthen movies.  Besides, there is only one ‘cop’, and that’s me.  So you will just follow my lead, okay?”

“Fine.  Just out of interest, when did you last get any sleep?”

“Can’t remember.  Why?”

“Oh, no reason.  Just wondering about your sunny disposition, that’s all.”

They had arrived at the cells.  There were only six and now half of them were occupied.  Hastings, Macleod and the Augment.  It had been a busy couple of days.

“Do you want me to go in first?” Elvis said, raising his weapon.

“No.  I just saved the guy’s life.  I don’t think he’s going to attack me.  And I’ve got my stungun if he suddenly loses his mind.”

Elvis looked about to complain, but he let her step forward anyway.

When Biddy opened the door the Augment was standing just on the other side, staring straight at her without blinking like some horrible statue.

“What is it?” She said, unnerved.

The Augment flexed his arms and for one moment she thought he was going to grab her throat, but then he let out a sigh.

“I was waiting for you.”

“Oh yes?  Have you decided to tell me all about the Westward Ho!?”

“Confess to murder, you mean?  Not yet.”

Biddy clicked her back teeth together. “Enough wasting my time.  I’m going to hand you over to Scotclan within the hour unless you tell me something that makes keeping you worthwhile.”

“I’m not sure I can do that.”

Biddy looked at Elvis who took the box out of the bag he was carrying.  When the Augment caught sight of it he sucked in his cheeks.

“I thought you might want to know about that,” he said softly.

“What the hell is it?” Biddy asked.

While the Augment watched, Elvis removed the metal cylinder from the box.  It was glowing with some sort of energy.  Elvis was staring at the thing like it was about to start speaking to him. “It’s a Fast Light engine.  Only…”

“Only it’s not,” the Augment said.  He seemed drained now, as if he was giving up.  He turned away so that he didn’t have to look at the box.

“I don’t understand,” Biddy said. “Fast light engines are huge, aren’t they?”

Elvis looked at her like she was a toddler trying to understand the alphabet. “They are massive because of the fuel and the cooling systems.  But the mechanics of it, the heart of the engine is actually quite small.”

“Like this?”

“Yes.  But the design of this is… weird.  Like, seriously weird.  I don’t understand what I’m looking at.”

Biddy stared at the Augment who was looking into the middle distance, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

“Well?” She said finally. “We’re not going anywhere.  Why don’t you tell us what the hell we’re looking at?”

She expected him to keep silent, but instead the Augment spoke. “It’s the next advance in interstellar travel.” Lu Tang’s voice had lost all of its usual arrogance. “No, that’s not right.  It’s not really travel at all.” The Augment paused, then shrugged. “It feels strange to tell someone after all this time, but I guess it doesn’t matter.  It’s a portal drive.”

“Woah.” Elvis looked like he was going to throw up.  Or faint.  Something dramatic anyway.

Biddy hated looking stupid, but she still didn’t get what the two men were so impressed by. “And what is a portal drive?”

“It creates portals in space,” the Augment explained. “All travel up until now, even including Fast Light, has been a way of getting from A to B along a certain path.  A portal drive takes away the need for a path.  A becomes B, instantaneously.”

“But that’s…” Biddy’s head swum.  “That’s like something out of a movie.  I mean, it’s not really possible is it?”

“There were rumors,” Elvis whispered.  He couldn’t take his eyes off the object now, like it was some sort of religious relic. “When I was in training, every so often someone would mention the idea that someone had perfected a way of teleporting.  But it was just a myth.”

“If something happens long enough ago it becomes a myth,” Lu Tang said. “Trust me on this one.”

“Long ago?  Surely if this technology has been around for a while someone would be using it.”

“The Augments invented the portal drive seventy years ago.”

Elvis shook his head. “Not possible.”

“Don’t be a dumb human.  We invented it, and then we realized what a disaster it would be if human beings ever got to use it.  So we deleted any mention of the blasted thing and hid the only prototype away.”

“Why?”

“I told you.  To keep it out of the grubby hands of humanity.”

“But why would it matter if we had the portal drive.  I mean, Fast Light was a good thing, wasn’t it?  Why wouldn’t a portal drive be just as good?”

The Augment leaned back against the wall of the cell. “Because it’s not just an engine.  The portal drive is also the most terrible weapon ever invented.”

Chapter 30

He had expected the Detective to be more impressed.

“The most terrible weapon ever made?” She shrugged. “Why?”

“Indeed.  That is why it was never put into production.  If mere humans ever got their hands on it, the entire