Tina was doing the books when the doorbell to the shop rang.
The old-fashioned tinkle was music to her ears. It meant customers, and there were never quite enough of those.
She gladly abandoned her tangled finances, shoving the computer in the drawer with the bookkeeping module still on the screen.
The man who came in, tall and broad shouldered, was not a local but he looked vaguely familiar to her. It wasn’t unusual for strangers to come into the shop, even if it was located twenty minutes out of Gandama and only thirty people lived in the remote hamlet of Dickson’s Creek.
People around here went to all kinds of lengths to live their lives out of the neighbours’ view. It wouldn’t be the first time that someone had moved in with family or married a local, or someone had died and the house had been sold and the community only found out months later.
That was how people rolled around here.
She couldn't see his face because he was backlit by the light that streamed in from the window. It was late afternoon and the desert sun was coming in straight from over the dusty fields where the neighbour’s farm robot moved backwards and forwards, raking rocks out of the soil.
The stranger wound his way between the shelves and tables displaying electronics and security equipment without stopping to look at any of it.
Tina made herself look taller behind the counter of the shop. She quickly rearranged a box of the latest sensors that she had obtained from a dealer in Peris City last week, hoping he would buy a handful of them. Someone had done that just this morning. Like everything that came from off world, they weren’t cheap.
The man came up to the shop counter and placed both his hands on the surface.
Strange hands they were, too. His fingers were stubby and very short. The skin was mottled and his fingers were covered with little elongated flaps of skin, like warts. He had so many of them that he looked like a toad.
His nails had grown in a curved fashion, like the claws of an animal. He had filed the ends into points.
He wore a long-sleeved jacket despite the heat. The top of the zip fastening was open, revealing a glimmer of body armour. Around his waist he wore a belt with large metal eyelets—a pirate belt. Typically, members of the pirate—or Freeranger—gangs wore one of these, usually with an array of weapons dangling from it.
Those belts had become fashionable in Peris City recently, but it still made Tina do a double take when she saw one.
"How can I help you?" she asked, her heart still thudding.
She reached under the counter for the fence post she kept there as a weapon, although it would do little against high-quality armour like that, if thuggery was the purpose of his visit. And she wasn’t sure. He looked too clean and civilised for that.
"I'm here for the loan," the man said.
His voice was deep and gravelly, but again, she sensed she’d heard it before. His face, equally covered in warts, was utterly strange to her. The only part of him that didn’t make Tina’s skin crawl was his eyes. They were brown and clear.
"I haven't applied for a loan," Tina said. Since when did lenders send people who dressed like pirates, no matter how fashionable the attire?
"It's not about me giving out more money. It's about getting my money back."
"I don't understand. Who are you? I don’t owe you any money.”
“You don’t have a loan for this shop?”
“Why should that be any of your business? I don’t even know who you are.”
“I’m Simon Fosnet. I asked you, do you have a loan?”
“I do, but I have never missed any payments." Because getting tangled up with unscrupulous lenders was one of the ways people got themselves into trouble in Gandama.
“That’s right. I need the money."
And it was only at this point that she figured out who he was.
When she had started the shop, Tina had borrowed money to buy the premises off one of the town’s loan brokers. The money came from a rich citizen of Gandama. She had met the man a few times, but he had later moved to Peris City, leaving the administration of the loan to a broker. For years she had made regular payments.
Was this really the same man?
She couldn’t clearly remember what he had looked like back then, but she would have remembered if he had all those strange warts on his face. What sort of horrible condition was this?
She stammered, ”I’m sorry. I didn't recognise you."
And, looking at his face, she still didn’t recognise him, his disfigurement was that bad. But now that she thought of it, she did recognise his name.
He snorted, but didn’t comment on it. “Yes. It’s unusual for the lender to ask for a return of the funds, but I have a situation where I need the money quickly. It’s medical, you must understand.”
“Yes, I understand.” Shudder. Whatever was wrong with him?
“Good, then I want the entire amount repaid in full within three days.”
“Sorry—I didn’t hear you properly. Did you say three days?”
“That’s what I said.”
"But wait. Where am I going to find that kind of money within three days?” Tina's heart was hammering. Three days was ridiculous. “Can’t you give me a bit longer? Nothing in Gandama moves fast.”
"I'm afraid that’s not my problem. I simply need the money fast. You can find a loan broker to get you a different loan from someone else."
Yes, but who else would lend her the money? Gandama was doing badly enough. All the people who used to have successful businesses had left in the last few years. With all the unsavoury business and thuggery that was going on, the only business that was still close to making a profit was that of selling security equipment. And that business was hers.
Then he added, “There is another solution."
"Is there?"
Any solution that didn’t involve the rendering of certain “services”, for which she was too old anyway. Surely they couldn’t be that desperate?
"You could give me that collection of yours in your backyard."
What the…? ”My cactuses?"
"Yes."
A cold hand of fear clamped around her heart. No way would she give him her cactuses. She had invested far too much time and research in them. Without them, she couldn’t survive. They were part of her business, and to sell him her breeding stock… just no. She had taken years to develop them, initially because she liked them, and they liked being around her. But then people in Peris City had become interested in them, collectors of cactuses, who paid lots of money for the very special ones she developed.
"Yes, it's easy. I take the collection, and you keep the money."
“All of the money?” That sounded too good to be believed. In fact, she didn’t believe it. This had to be some sort of trap.
“Yes.”
“Would you sign for that?”
He snorted. “What do you expect? No, this is a deal I can only offer to you in person, and only because I’m partial to cactuses.”
“They’re for yourself?” If she weren’t already dubious about this “deal”, then she would be now. There was no reason for him to want the cactuses, if he needed money, as he said earlier. Medical treatment had to be more important than cactuses, no matter how much they were worth. No matter how much rich people were trying to park money in assets that had no value on paper, but could easily be sold on the black market.
And if she agreed, what would happen to her loan if he wouldn’t sign a written deal?
It would take her far too long to build up breeding stock of a similar quality, by which time the cactus craze in Peris City would have worn off, leaving her with a big hole in her budget, if she could even survive that long.
Oh no, other than the fact that she didn't want to sell the cactuses, Tina didn't trust this at all. What was up with him anyway? Why did he have all those disgusting warts on his face and hands?
"Can I think about this?" Anything but that. She’d have to find some other way of getting him the money.
"I still need the money within three days."
"I understand. But I still want to think about it. I’ll get you the money as soon as I can.”
He held up three warted, curve-nailed fingers before her face. “Three days."
“I will try.”
“Not try. I need the money. Or I will use more convincing methods.”
And as abruptly as he had come, he left the shop again. The bell above the door tinkled when he left. There was nothing cheerful about it this time.
Tina let her shoulders slump. Where the hell would she get that much money within three days?
"Who was that?" said a young male voice at the back of the shop. Tina still had to get used to the dark tone it had taken on a few weeks ago.
The voice was accompanied by whirring and clicking as Rex wheeled his armour away from the work bench where he had been fixing equipment and lumbered to the door, the armour going zzzz-click-zzzzz-click with each step.
“Just a customer,” Tina said. The shop was her business. Rex was too young to have to deal with the trouble of running it.
“That didn’t sound like just a customer to me. It sounded like he was going to be difficult.”
Rex was also getting smart. “Don’t worry about it,” Tina said.
“Did you know him?”
“Not really.”
“Then what did he want?”
“Just shop business. Why are you asking?” Seriously, what was it with all the questions? Rex rarely said boo.
“Old Janusz told me yesterday to watch out because he’s seen a lot of weird characters around recently. Pirates and those.”
Tina thought of the pirate belt the man had been wearing. But it had been far too new for it to belong to a real Freeranger pirate. They had become fashion items. Everyone wore them.
“Where does Janusz see these pirates anyway? He sits on his back veranda all day playing with his farming robots. He doesn’t go anywhere, except when he needs to complain about something.”
Rex shrugged, which made his harness wobble. “I’m just repeating what he said.”
But a faint feeling of unease came over her. Tina had heard the rumours about the pirates as well.
Pirates was a loose term for those people who rejected Federacy rule as a form of dictatorship. Space was meant to be free for all.
Not all of them had criminal intentions, but they often resorted to crimes, because, even the principled ones still needed to live, and they were ineligible for Federacy support.
Some people, like Janusz, got their definition of pirates mixed up. The real Freerangers were in space, and wouldn’t come down to planets. Janusz’s “pirates” were just petty criminals.
“Don’t worry about pirates. The man came from Peris City. He’s not a pirate.”
“Are you sure? Janusz said that some of them were getting bold and were going into shops.”
“Yes, I’m sure. I don’t know this customer well, but I know of him. He’s not a pirate. And old Janusz says a lot of things. Most of them are in his head. Don’t let him upset you with all these things. They’re mostly heavily embellished gossip.”
He snorted. “How else am I supposed to find out what’s going on? You never tell me anything.”
“That’s because the things he says are all nonsense.”
“Then tell me the truth according to Dr Tina Freeman.” He put on a self-important voice when he said that. “I’m fifteen. I can handle it.”
Tina lifted her hands, breathed in deeply, her mind full of reasons why there was no single truth and about how people in power made you see what they wanted you to see—but it was all unimportant.
So she let out her breath again.
Money. Getting another loan. Those were the important things. She didn’t have time for yet another argument with her son. There had been far too many of them already.
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