Hailey's Comet Anthology Read online

  “I’d have more fun if you were in here more…” the woman replied temptingly.

  “I’ll be back tonight, darling. We’ll have fun,” he replied with an audible kiss. He emerged from the cabin and pulled the door closed behind him. With a start, he noticed Hailey retreating down the hall at a casual stroll. “Agent Ramirez,” he called. “What are you doing on this deck? There’s nothing of interest for you here.”

  Hailey turned to face him. “It is of equal interest as many of the decks of this ship,” she replied.

  “May I suggest you find diversion in the vid theater?” Artie offered.

  “Thank you for the suggestion,” she replied noncommittally. She turned away and resumed her stroll. When she was in the stairwell, out of sight of Artie and his current mistress’s door, she stopped and focused her hearing on what he was doing. He had not yet walked away from the suite. She heard a soft click and beep, then retreating footsteps. Hailey waited until Artie was long gone, then returned to the suite he had visited.

  She knocked on the door. A voice from within replied, “Trip, you don’t have to knock; just come in.”

  “I am not Trip.”

  Silence. Then, “I’ll be right there.” After a few moments, the resident tried to open the door, but it was stuck. “I don’t know what’s wrong…” she said as she yanked on the door. “It’s stuck. Can you push from your side?”

  “Ma’am, it’s not stuck. It’s locked.”

  “I didn’t lock it!”

  “Please stand by,” Hailey said, studying the electronic pad on the outside of the door. It was advanced, but not state-of-the-art. With information she accessed from her temporal data node, she knew there was a key card that opened the lock. “I’ll have to get the key card. Does anyone come in there besides Mr. Kinkade?”

  “No, just Trip!”

  “What about your meals?”

  “Oh, right. I guess the steward comes in, and the maid.”

  Hailey rolled her eyes. “I’ll be back.”

  “Who are you?” the woman asked as Hailey walked away, ignoring her.

  Following the smell of laundry, Hailey found her way to the maid’s work room. “Hello,” she said. No one was in the room, but there was a stack of keycards on the work table next to an apron. “On a break, huh?” She picked up the cards and looked through them. “Ever heard of a master key?” she muttered. At last, she found one that matched the suite she was interested in.

  Back at the locked door, she knocked again. “May I come in?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  Hailey entered and scanned the suite. It was enormous, considering it was on board a ship and not in a castle. Beyond the entry was a spacious living room with vid screen, tablets, music generator, lavish furniture, and stocked bar and kitchenette. To the right was a door leading to a bedroom, washroom, and more she could not see. To the left was another room with a sauna and hot tub. It was obscene luxury to fill a large tub with water on a ship with a finite amount of the precious liquid on board.

  In the middle of everything stood a short woman, not beautiful, but more attractive by modern standards than Hailey was. She wore casual clothes made of silk: pants and a low-cut v-neck shirt. She stared at Hailey, her brow furrowed. “Who are you?” she asked.

  “Agent Ramirez. And you are…?”

  “Mandy Fresnel.”

  Hailey accessed all the recent news about Artie and his dates. Mandy was not included in any stories. “I haven’t heard of…” she stopped herself. She was learning that statements of fact sometimes caused people pain, and Mandy’s facial muscles already betrayed the beginning of a frown. Hailey looked at the creature, thinking the cruise on Artie’s yacht must be big excitement in her little life; she shouldn’t ruin it for her. “Excuse me. I’m pleased to meet you Ms. Fresnel,” she said instead.

  “What are you an agent for?” Mandy asked.

  “I have been contracted by Mr. Kinkade for a business venture. In the interest of his privacy, I cannot say any more than that.”

  “Oh,” Mandy replied, looking bored suddenly. “I don’t know anything about Trip’s business deals, ‘cept that he’s some hotshot wheeler-dealer in real estate, like his father.”

  While Mandy’s vital signs told Hailey that Mandy spoke the truth as she knew it, Hailey knew it wasn’t true. Artie had not conducted a business deal since he lost half-a-million points on an ill-conceived venture into floating real estate. His father was not pleased and Artie was dismissed from his post in the family company. Since then, Artie had spent five times that amount on his own amusement, but his father seemed unwilling or unable to stop his reckless spending.

  “Ms. Fresnel, may I ask what your role is on this ship?” Hailey inquired.

  “I don’t work on this ship. I’m a guest!”

  “Then your role is: guest.”

  “Yeah.” Mandy sat on the sofa with her feet tucked under her body. She leaned sideways on the back and put up her elbow. “So…”

  Hailey waited for Mandy to complete her sentence, but no additional words were forthcoming. She asked if she may sit also.

  “Sure, whatever you want.”

  “Ms. Fresnel, how long have you known Mr. Kinkade?” Hailey asked.

  “We met at the club a week ago.”

  “Oh? Do you frequent clubs often?”

  “I work at the club. I was his server. He gave me a really good tip.”

  “And how did you end up here?”

  “Well, he came into the club the night before we left and told me all about this scouting trip. He said it would’ve been nice if he could invite me along, but it was a business trip… Well, I said I didn’t mind if it was a business trip, but I’d sure like to see a spiffy yacht and this boat don’t disappoint! You know what I mean?”

  “He confines you to this guest room?” Hailey asked.

  “Yeah, he said that was the catch, but it’s OK. I eat and sleep as much as I want. It’s better than the flat I have back home, and I don’t have to work.”

  “Were you aware that he locked you inside?”

  “That must’ve been a mistake. He wouldn’t do that on purpose. Probably someone else locked it.”

  Hailey held her tongue. It was not her job to interfere with Artie’s love life, though it did tickle her something’s-not-right sense. “I believe I am the only business associate on board at this time. It doesn’t bother me if you roam the ship freely. Perhaps I should tell Mr. Kinkade to give you free reign.”

  “You would do that?” Mandy asked. “That would be great!”

  “Tell me, Ms. Fresnel, had you heard of Artemis Kinkade before he visited the club where you work?”

  “Well, sure, I heard of Artemis Kinkade. His name is everywhere. But I always thought he was an old man. Well, he is an old man. Trip is his son. I’m not sure, now, which Artemis built which buildings, but you see the name on lots of things, right?”

  “Indeed. What have you learned about ‘Trip’ over the last few days?”

  “Well, I haven’t seen him that much. I figured he was doing his business. With you, I suppose.”

  “We’ve hardly spoken since the first day,” Hailey revealed.

  Mandy furrowed her brow. “Then why’s he so busy?”

  “Perhaps owning a space yacht is a lot of work,” Hailey suggested. “But with a crew the size of this one, I’m not sure what’s left for him to do.” That tickle was really hammering on Hailey’s not-right sense. “Tell ya what,” she said casually to Mandy. “Stay here a while longer and I’ll see if I can find him so he can give you the green light to wander.”

  “Thanks,” Mandy replied. “That’s really nice of you.”

  Hailey walked up and down the halls of the ship systematically, listening through doors until she found Artie in a suite that appeared to take up a significant portion of that deck. She heard the sounds of intimate relations coming from that room. She knew it was Artie because he talked constantly about what his partner
should do to make his experience better. The female inside obeyed every request, and when he told her to make more noise, she became very vocal. Hailey compared her voice to the many news snippets she had studied before the mission, but the voice didn’t match anyone she had researched.

  Hailey moved on. Her search for Artie turned into a search for other guests. How many people did he have confined to their quarters so they wouldn’t know about each other? One deck lower, she discovered a guest playing music loudly. Hailey quietly tried the door, but it, like Mandy’s, was locked.

  Hailey resumed her course through the ship. Again, on the next deck down, she discovered another guest. She knew there were four or more guests on board, and Artie was visiting at least two of them for conjugal-type activities. What she couldn’t fathom was why he brought them along at all and why he didn’t tell her there were other non-crew people on board.

  At the cargo bay area, Hailey found a crewmember coming out of the cargo bay and locking the access hatch. “Good afternoon,” Hailey said.

  “What? Oh, who are you?”

  “Agent Ramirez. Who are you?”

  “You’re the Wraith?”

  “Yes. And you are?”

  “Uh, Gill. Bertram Gill. Cargo master.”

  “Got a lot of cargo to master on this trip?”

  “Huh? Oh, yeah. The usual: food, spare parts, the usual.”

  Hailey chuckled. “Relax. I won’t hurt you,” she assured the nervous man. He laughed uneasily and made an excuse to leave.

  After scouting the entire ship with her enhanced hearing and vision, and storing a map of every centimeter of every level in her temporal data node, Hailey returned to her suite to analyze the data in the privacy of her room. She and Artie had suites in adjacent sections. The four guests had suites on four separate levels, in suites that were not directly above one another. She reached one conclusion quickly: Artie did not want the guests, probably all women, to know about the other women. He also did not want Hailey to know about them, since he tried to shoo her off Mandy’s level when he found her there.

  Her second conclusion was that the crew knew about the guests. Perhaps it was a common thing for Artie to take female companions on pleasure voyages to the stars. She wondered, though, if the crew were always complicit in keeping the guests locked up. In itself, it was not a criminal act to confine someone to a suite if they understood, ahead of time, that was to be the arrangement. Maybe not criminal, but definitely creepy. On a three-day trip, Artie was banging multiple women, multiple times. How much sex does one spoiled rich kid need?

  There was a knock at her door. She opened it to find Artie standing there with a bottle of alcohol and a conceited smile. “Care to share a drink with me?” he asked.

  “No, thank you,” Hailey replied, refraining from giving Artie a smart kick in the balls.

  “You wound me, Agent Ramirez. I’ve tried so hard to be friendly, and you do not want to be friends,” he complained.

  Hailey wished to point out that he had plenty of “friends” aboard his yacht, but he didn’t know that she was aware of them, so she kept that information to herself. “Mr. Kinkade, I believe I made my professional position clear to you on Ganymede. Perhaps you should’ve brought guests along for company, since I do not fill that role to your satisfaction.”

  “My satisfaction? I only want to make you as comfortable as possible, Agent Ramirez. I thought you might be bored, and I’d hate for you to be bored on board my little ship. Ha! Bored on board. Get it?”

  “Have you been drinking already, Mr. Kinkade?”

  “You don’t expect me to sit around being bored on my own ship, do you? But I don’t want to drink alone. C’mon. Join me for one glass.” He barged into the room and rooted through the kitchenette looking for glasses.

  Hailey was torn. It was an uncomfortable feeling. She never waffled over what to do; she was always sure about her next course of action. But this was not an ordinary mission. Besides scouting an asteroid for Mr. Kinkade, she was expected to represent SWORD in a civil, even friendly, manner. That’s why Ram had requested her for the job. She made a mental note to visit Ram when she was through and give him a good punch in the gut.

  “Ah! Here we go,” Artie announced, setting two glasses on the counter and filling them with a pink, bubbly liquid from the bottle he brought in. “Here,” he said, handing one to Hailey.

  Hailey took the glass but did not drink from it. Artie made himself comfortable on the sofa. “So, how do you like my little ship?” Artie asked.

  “It’s not that little. Why, you have ten large suites just for guests, in addition to all the entertainment rooms, crew quarters, and, I assume, normal guts of a ship. My entire craft would fit inside the wash room in this suite.” Hailey was intentionally flattering. She studied Artie’s physiological reactions.

  “Agent Ramirez, if you find your accommodations comfortable, then I am pleased. I guess, though, we could’ve taken a smaller ship, since there’s only the two of us passengers on board.”

  “What about your friend on level two?”

  Artie shifted guiltily. “You know about Mandy,” he said. “Well, don’t worry about her; she won’t get in your way. I’ve asked her to stay on level two. She knows this is a business trip and she won’t wander around and bother you.”

  “It makes no difference to me if you let her wander wherever she wants. The ship is huge; what are the chances we’d get in each other’s way?”

  Artie’s face tightened, then instantly relaxed. “Well, I’ll tell her, but I think she’s enjoying her suite.”

  “I think you should bring her to the dining room for dinner today. I’d like to meet your friend.”

  “If you wish, then I shall.” Artie glanced around the room and finally settled his gaze on Hailey’s glass. “You haven’t touched your drink. Please, sit down and relax with me.”

  Hailey sat on the sofa next to Artie but set her glass on the side table. She wanted to see what moves he might make on her, not one hour after being crudely intimate with a woman three decks below.

  “Agent Ramirez, you must work awfully hard. I hope you’re relaxing while you’re off duty.”

  “Actually, Mr. Kinkade, we’re nearly at our destination. I was about to prep for departure so I could begin scouting the asteroid you’re interested in.”

  “Oh, there’s no rush. You don’t have to run out there the instant we land.”

  “On the contrary, I’d like to wrap up this mission as soon as possible and get on to my next assignment.”

  “Well, you have time for one drink with me, don’t you?”

  Hailey studied him. She would play along. She picked up her glass and put her lips on the edge, pretending to take a sip. Artie downed a quarter of his glass at the same time. “It’s good, right?” he said. “Nothing beats the vineyards on Tesla Three. I don’t care where you go.”

  “Tesla Three. That’s pretty exclusive wine. They only bottle a hundred cases a year.”

  “Have you been there?” Artie asked conversationally.

  “Yes, about three years ago.”

  “What kind of trouble was there on T3? It’s a pretty peaceful colony, isn’t it?”

  “Have you ever been there?” Hailey asked.

  “Nope. Just have a supplier who gets me their best years’ cases,” he said, taking another large sip of the pink liquid.

  Hailey neglected to supply Artie with any information about her mission on Tesla Three. He seemed to forget that he asked. He yawned and stretched out, propping his feet up on the chaiko table and his arm on the sofa back behind Hailey. “If you’re tired, perhaps you should retire to your suite and rest.”

  “Maybe I could just crash on your sofa, since I’m here.”

  She stood. “Be my guest. I’m going to prep for EVA. Good afternoon, Mr. Kinkade.” Hailey went to the bedroom to retrieve her personal possessions from the suite. She would not leave anything in the room if Artie was going to be there.
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br />   He followed her into the bedroom. “Agent Ramirez, please. Don’t rush off. There’s really no urgency to scouting the asteroid.” He got right behind her as she closed the latches on her suitcase. She didn’t need her helmet’s proximity sensors to know he was deep within her personal comfort zone. “How many opportunities do you get – in your line of work – to relax and release some… tension?”

  “Mr. Kinkade, please step away from me before I feel a need to defend myself.”

  “I can be very good to you,” he soothed, touching the hair that fell onto her shoulder.

  Hailey turned on the spot and found herself face to face – within centimeters – with Artie. She could smell the alcohol on his breath and the lust in his pheromones. “Is this how you seduce your female friends?” she asked, her face blank.

  He took a step back. “I don’t seduce anyone. They throw themselves at me. I’m trying to get away from women like that. You’re different. You have self-confidence and self-respect.”

  “Do you?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means, if you bed down with every hanger-on who throws herself at you, you must not think very highly of yourself.”

  “It’s not in my nature to turn down good opportunities,” he replied with a subtle grin. “Not with the pretty ones, at least. You, Agent Ramirez, are very pretty. Does anyone ever tell you that?”

  “I am not interested in your flattery or your company. Please step out of my way.”

  “You do present a tempting challenge, Agent Ramirez,” Artie said, not stepping out of Hailey’s way.

  “Please,” she repeated ominously, “step out of my way.” Her body seemed to exude a terrifying aura that pushed Artie back. He looked at her, confused. “Thank you,” she replied as she left the room.

  Dr. Ramirez

  Attired in her space-rated Wraith suit, Hailey prepared to exit the ship as soon as the craft was on the surface of asteroid DN5714. She stood near the hatch, awaiting the pilot’s comm that they had secured a stable landing position. As she waited, she pondered Artemis Kinkade III.