Titan's Plague: The Trial by Tom Briggs (story reading .txt) 📕

route well,” Pati said.

“Good, once I’m sure, I’ll turn and wave. You walk—do not run—walk to me, and we’ll go in together.”

“Okay, I’ll wait for your signal,” Pati said.

Joe nodded and moved off. She bent down, staying just high enough to see Joe over the groundcars. He moved past the left side of the terminus station and up to the terminal entrance. Without a train disembarking passengers, the walkway to the doors was empty, and he didn’t need much time to spy the area. He turned back toward her and froze.

Pati saw two figures, a little taller than Joe, march toward him from the terminus station. She guessed they had been standing by the platform doors, which she couldn’t see from where she stood. She then guessed it was an excellent place to station constables conducting a dragnet. Joe’s body language suggested she guessed correctly.

Pati thought she could run. Get out of here and head back north to old Karakorum like Joe originally said they should. Except, if they had Joe, he would probably confess to the plan. Not only that, the constables would know for sure she was on the loose. She had no illusion she could run forever on this god-forsaken moon where she had no friends.

She didn’t like the idea of running, anyway. There were only two constables, and she and Joe were both Earth-born. Pati moved out from between the and walked around the terminus station. If she surprised the constables, she needed to come in from a different direction than that which they saw Joe approach from. She only hoped they’d still be there after the minute it’d take to walk around.

Once she was out of their line of sight, she ran, keeping low, until she rounded the station. She stood up and approached, walking along another sidewalk. They were questioning Joe, although she couldn’t make out exactly what was being said.

Then Joe saw her. She knew it because he immediately looked in the direction from which he had come, not in her direction. The constables turned to see where Joe looked, and she approached from their blind spot. Two well-placed punches and these secgen constables would be incapacitated. She’d watch their heads though; no reason to add to her list of accidental deaths.

Then she saw one of their faces. He was one of the constables that stormed into Nancy’s office during her argument with Joe. Nancy said then he had just arrived from Earth. A well-placed punch would bounce off of his body. She was now only a few steps away, and her plan had failed before it even began.

The face she recognized looked at her and he pointed. Pati got to within a step of his partner, and as he turned to his right, she relieved him of the tranquilizer gun in his belt. She’d never used one before, and it took a moment to get a finger on the trigger.

The constable, certainly upset to have had his weapon lifted so easily, lunged at Pati. She didn’t have time to think and pulled the trigger. She watched his expression go from anger to surprise, and finally to incoherence in less than a second’s time.

The other constable had his weapon out. But he held his fire until his partner fell off of Pati. Her gun had a clear shot before that happened, and she pulled the trigger three more times. At least one dart struck him because he fell into a heap like his partner. She didn’t bother to watch his face.

“Excellent,” Joe said.

“Back to the original plan?”

“No, you were right. They’re looking for me, not you. We have to go around.”

“How?”

“Back through the tunnel. Let’s go.”

Pati followed him off to the side, back around the landscaping to the section of the building where the spaceport construction stopped, and the courthouse construction began. She checked behind them, and nobody had followed.

Joe tapped the wall, and nothing happened. He tapped the wall again, and again nothing happened.

“What’s wrong?” Pati asked.

“I can’t find the tap pad that’s embedded in the wall.”

She focused on the areas where Joe tapped. There seemed no clue where a secret touch pad would be placed, as should be the case if it was to remain hidden. Except, it was no good if nobody could find it, so wouldn’t there be some clue as to the location?

“Can you find the door?” Pati asked.

“Not unless I get it open.”

Pati recalled her grandmother’s house in Ireland. The thing was built nearly two hundred years ago, and something about it reminded her of this wall.

“Damn,” Joe said. “We’ll have to try to sneak in the front way.”

Pati turned to check where she’d shot the constables, and already terminal workers were attending to them. “No, we’re not going to get in that way,” Pati said.

“Then we’re caught. Because I have no idea how to open this door.” He sat down on the crushed gravel and shook his head.

“Isn’t there another entrance? Maybe for freight?” she asked.

“Guarded full-time to keep smugglers from moving contraband,” Joe said. He continued to shake his head and then put his right hand over his eyes.

She refused to give up but had no idea what to do. Pati leaned against the wall. Maybe they could go on the run here. With Joe’s knowledge of Karakorum, they might stand a chance. Not a good chance, since he’d given up already. Somehow, she’d have to motivate him and do it fast.

Pati tapped her head against the wall as she thought, trying to find ideas. None came to her, except her grandmother’s house. Considering that her grandmother had died a few years ago, what possibly could her old house have to do with their situation?

Pati tapped her knuckles against the wall. She tapped them again on a different spot. The sound was different.

“Hey, Joe, if I found the door, would you be able to locate the touch pad?”

Joe shrugged, but he didn’t look at her.

She took that as a positive, or at least not a negative. After her grandmother died, Pati helped clean the house. Her father wanted to contract some remodeling but needed to locate utilities that weren’t diagramed in the ancient building’s plans. He tapped walls until he heard a hollowness and focused on that area.

And it worked, she hoped. She heard a hollowness as she tapped, and it continued until she’d traversed about the width of the tunnel she used earlier. The location was about two meters from where Joe had looked.

“It’s right over here,” she said.

“How do you know?”

“Just trust me. Here’s the right side.” She tapped with her right hand. Then she tapped with her left. “And here’s the other side.”

Joe’s expression was not enthusiastic. However, he got up and moved into Pati’s position. He tapped once, and they heard the door unlatch.

“Damn, how did you—”

“Don’t think about it, just move,” she said.

Joe opened the door, and they jumped in. The lights came on right after he closed it behind them. “Come on,” he said and led her to the other side. He stopped to crack the last door and inspect the hallway. “It’s clear,” he said and bounded in.

Pati followed him into the empty hallway. Joe let the door close on its own and they heard the latches.

“Now what?” Pati asked. Being back where she started did not give her confidence.

“Into the spaceport,” Joe said. He faced the door and tapped the keypad next to it for entry.

“Will they know it’s you?” Pati asked.

“It’s a general code used throughout the spaceport, and we all use it on multiple doors. They won’t know it’s me, at least not for a while.”

The door opened and Joe led her through. The open space made her feel vulnerable, although there were not many workers around to threaten them. Joe almost ran down the dark walkway leading to the lander docks. Most of the slips were empty, having taken the passengers up to Picus for the workday. A few were parked, and unmanned, ready for a fugitive to steal.

Except, the lander would not make it past Picus. There, she’d be back under the control of Kerry McLear. It’d probably be better to stay on Titan than let that happen.

Joe kept moving. Soon, they’d cleared the lander slips and were walking past shuttles, which had greater range. They could try to steal one, but getting away was another matter, and where would they go?

A man stood behind one of the shuttles, and he seemed to recognize Joe. Joe hurried toward him and stopped when he got there.

“You’re late,” the man said. He was taller than both of them and his black hair was longer than Pati’s.

“Gemini, thanks for waiting,” Joe said.

“We need workers, so I figured I’d give you a few minutes before I left.”

“Well, we’re here.”

“Who’s your friend?”

Joe looked at Pati. “Her name’s Terri,” he said. He looked back at Gemini. “You ready to go or do you want to stay longer for introductions?”

“Fine, get in,” Gemini said. He led them into the shuttle and assigned them seats before shutting the shuttle door. The cabin contained about twenty seats in rows of four. Joe and Pati sat in front, on the left. Before the shuttle moved, Pati had to ask. “Joe, have you been to Enceladus before?”