The Deal
STARDRIFT – Episode 1: Dead Reckoning (Scene 2)
It wasn’t a pleasant walk as Vizier followed Jel Darm back into the asteroid.
“You should tell me what you want. A thing to do is not specific enough for me to respond to.”
“Don’t get picky with me,” said Jel. “I’ll tell you enough so that you can do your job.”
“My job is to pilot your rust bucket. Where to maybe even you don’t know.”
“If you get through this meeting. And the haul is to Nustral.”
That gave Vizier something to ponder as they walked on. Nustral was not a short jaunt away. And as a destination it was what Fest Stop could have been. A major galactic junction with layers of possibilities.
They turned away from the communal areas where sleep pods were and Vizier was glad for that. Then they went up and along a side corridor that took them out of the bustle of the common area, as much as there was, and above along a passage that brought them to a structure built into the interior wall.
Looking over his shoulder Vizier could see most of the common area, which made this spot both inconspicuous yet also central, able to observe most of what goes on below.
“Who are you meeting?”
“We, we are meeting with Cira Warten.”
Vizier had heard the name before, mentioned in passing and with hushed breaths. Cira Warten was one of the powers still functioning on Fest Stop. Not the business and administration part. That was done by officious managers. Cira organised, or allowed depending on who you asked, things to happen that could not happen by regular means.
They entered a nondescript anteroom that looked nothing like the front office of a powerful organisation. A surly man lounged on a low couch and only lifted an eyebrow. Jel Darm announced that they had come to see Cira Warten.
The guard got to his feet and adjusted the blast pistol on his hip with a grunt. He was a block of a man, towering over Jel.
Jel Darm pulled his shoulders back in a poor attempt to appear taller. “She would be expecting me,” he said.
“Wait here,” grunted the guard and left through another door which he shut behind him with a hollow clunk.
Jel walked across to the door as if it was still open and stopped at it, turned halfway and glared back at Vizier. “You have to know, this woman is not an easy piece to deal with.” He pointed at the door. “Her mind is kind of not fully connected to reality, if you know what I mean.”
Vizier folded his arms and leaned back against the wall. He didn’t care for this diversion. It coloured a routine job with something sinister and he would like to know what that was. There was still time to cancel the deal.
Jel paced back across the room, still holding the package gingerly. “I don’t trust her but she has made this deal which pays me well. I wouldn’t work with her otherwise.”
“Would you be more specific, or are we still only dealing with things?”
“You watch what you say.”
“You start talking straight I don’t have to.”
“No about this,” Jel tilted his head back to indicate beyond the door. “With her. She’s flighty and anything can set her off and if she’s upset and emotional there’s no dealing with her. And we can’t delay. Just have to drop this off and go.”
“Why not just give it to her henchman?”
“I’ve dealt with her kind before. Takes a delicate touch and I have it. Has to be done face to face.”
Vizier got the impression that Jel was basically talking to give himself confidence for the impending meeting. This was confirmed as he jumped back when the door opened and the guard stuck his head through.
“Follow me,” he barked.
They followed a passage to a door at the end. This opened up into an office with a control desk. Half of one wall was a large window that looked out over the common area of Fest Stop. The room must have had another purpose before it was taken over by Cira Warten.
Leaning against the control desk was Cira Warten.
Vizier expected somebody older.
She was a beautiful woman but there was something about her that was unsettling. It wasn’t the green hair, but what it was Vizier could not put his finger on yet.
She folded her arms and looked at Jel with a pinched frown that crinkled her nose. “Darm, everything in place?”
Jel threw his arms open, the package wobbling in his hand. “Of course it is. You should know I can deliver.”
Despite his previous bravado it looked to Vizier that Jel was genuinely wary of the woman, though she looked gentle and fragile and not menacing at all.
“I got my pilot here to show you and this,” said Jel as he held the package for Cira to take.
Cira nodded to her henchman and he took the package and placed it on an empty space on the control desk and began to open it. Vizier sidled to the side a bit so he could see what was in the package because the way Jel had handled it it could have been a bomb, or a crystal artefact.
It was a transponder from a spaceship that the guard handed to Cira.
She switched it on, listened to the coded beeps, checked a readout and nodded her head.
Vizier was surprised when he mentally decoded the transponder signal himself. It was the transponder of the Unit Breaker. Either Jel was planning for them to fly without one, or this was a duplicate.
He made a note that he had to recheck the transponder relays back on the ship. But now he had to just wait for Jel to finish his thing.
When she was done with the transponder Cira looked Vizier up and down slowly. He wasn’t sure if it was the look of somebody who wanted to dissect him, or who wanted to eat him. “So, why have you been slumming it at my port?” she asked.
“I meant to be just passing through,” said Vizier.
“Rumour has it you’re a half decent pilot. Why would you stoop to take a job from this worm?”
Before Vizier could answer which he sensed was a more complicated question that just the words suggested Jel pushed himself physically in between Vizier and Cira.
“I must object. There’s nothing lowly about my employ, or my character.”
Cira waited for the words to hang in the air and then slowly drift away leaving only an awkward space between her and Jel. She inspected the fingernails of her left hand and then gently placed her hand on her hip and looked back up at Jel.
“Your mere acceptance of my terms have diminished you to a petty lowlife,” she said and slowly stepped closer to Jel.
Instinctively the short man stepped back, though he tried to keep his shoulders squared and his chin up.
“That you readily capitulate and hand over any leverage you might have had left also shows that you are dimwitted and ignorant.”
By now Jel had his back against the wall and still Cira was advancing on him, pushing him back. She leaned in close so that their faces nearly touched.
“To call you a worm Jel Darm, is not an insult, it is an aspirational hope that you may one day rise to such a level.”
Then she lifted her finger and flicked him on the nose.
Jel Darm shuddered and let out a small whiny sound.
She laughed and swirled around to face Vizier again. He again got the uncanny feeling she was pretty but wrong, something in the colour of her eyes maybe, or something else?
“Right then,” said Cira, apparently satisfied. “Get on with it then.”
Jel did not quite get the hint that the meeting was over. “Yes, sure. We’re ready to depart. Would have been gone already, had it not been for…”
Cira had turned to look out the window and looked back over her shoulder with a raised eyebrow. “What is it?”
“I made the calculations again. The extra expenses on the fuel we need to get all the way to Nustral, that cuts into any profit I can make. It might even cost me…”
“You were paid half as agreed,” said Cira with a flicker of anger in her voice. “You deliver and then you get the other half.”
So much for Jel’s delicate touch it seemed. He seemed oblivious to her change in demeanour.
“But half is a bit thin. The cargo is worth a hundred times that.”
“Jel Darm, another word about changing the deal and you will be carrying your entrails in a basket back to your ship.”
Then it hit Vizier what felt wrong about her. He had only come across it once before but he was certain, she was a skin. A shell constructed to allow an trans-dimensional being to interact with this reality.
He did not wait for Jel as he led the way out of her office. Losing your entrails would be a cheap price to pay for a deal with a Kilyem Merisi.
© 2025 Gerhi Janse van Vuuren