A Good Cover Story
by David Barber
Out of mutual distrust, the three of them had arranged to meet somewhere public. There were plenty of drinking dens on Vesta, it was that sort of rock back then.
Morgan waited in the The Hard Place, nursing his drink until it was obvious they weren’t coming, which was a pity, because he needed a job. Just as he pushed his empty glass away, the couple slid onto the bench opposite him.
Her name was Ava, she said, and this was her brother, Mitch. They were looking for a pilot with a flexible attitude to customs duties.
She was tall for a woman, topping her brother by a head. She had a good face, Morgan thought, and hair that might have been red in her youth. Her brother though, was a weasel.
“I won’t smuggle spike,” Morgan warned them.
Mitch shrugged indifferently. “Not drugs.”
“Nor guns,” Morgan added.
Another careless shrug from Mitch.
Morgan bristled and the sister interrupted. “We’ve got a buyer on Ceres for an Outsider artefact.”
The brother glared. “Tell everyone, why don’t you.”
Outsider artefacts had turned up on Mars, dating from a time when Homo erectus was busy flaking hand axes. No one knew their purpose, but stories circulated about the effect they had on people.
Duty on an artefact would be huge, and everyone had evaded Customs at some time. No harm, no foul. It was Morgan’s turn to shrug.
* * *
The Ada Swann was a six-berth with plenty of room, but as they burned towards Ceres, Morgan and Ava got into the habit of sitting knee to knee at the pilot’s station, drinking tea.
“So,” he said after a while, “I’ve been thinking about a cover story.”
“Do we need one?”
“Customs quiz passengers,” said Morgan. “But they don’t bother with crew. If you and I are married, that explains your being aboard. And you nagged me into giving your brother a crew berth.”
“So I’m a nagging wife.”
“Persuasive, let’s say. Last time I went through Ceres Port, I was on my own, so we’ve been together less than a year.”
“And how did it happen, this whirlwind romance?”
“You were hitching a ride back to Vesta, and I fell for you.”
Ava snorted. “I’m middle-aged, lanky and plain. No one’s going to believe that story.”
“Who’d argue with a husband who says his wife is lovely?”
They were silent for a time, each thinking about things.
“So how come you married me?” Morgan resumed. “Apart from my charm and good looks.”
“Oh, it was the Ada Swann that swayed it.”
“A nag and a gold-digger.”
“But I do look after you in your dotage.”
“And they said this marriage would never last.”
“What the hell are you two talking about?” interrupted Mitch.
* * *
Cargo bays were empty, so Customs only gave the Ada Swann a cursory look. Mitch was a problem, but they stuck to the cover story. “Good luck with him,” the Customs Officer said to Morgan as they left.
Trusting nobody, Mitch carried empty bags onto the Ceres shuttle a few times. Eventually he and Ava took the artefact down to meet with their buyer. Morgan watched all this and shrugged; it was nothing to do with him, though he hoped Ava would want to fly back to Vesta afterwards.
Morgan was cleaning air filters — the sort of maintenance best done at dockside so life support can be turned off — when the buyer messaged him.
Of course, the artefact had turned out to be fake. And Mitch had vanished with the payment.
“Know nothing about it,” repeated Morgan.
The buyer’s name was Franklin. Earth-born, Morgan guessed from his accent and the look of him. Morgan was playing dumb. He didn’t know it yet, but it would be a mistake to irritate this man.
“Who knows what the brother-in-law’s up to. Nothing legal, at a guess.” He was basing his act on an old spacer named Eddy de Silva he’d known when he was young. Being unhelpful to the Law as an art form.
“Heard about a job here on Ceres,” he added, a statement so vague honesty hardly came into it.
“Even if any of that were true, it changes nothing. I want my money back.”
Franklin stated exactly how much he’d paid, and Morgan pursed his lips. “Don’t know what you expect me to do. Like I say, he’s not coming back here.”
Franklin leaned in to fill the screen. “Your wife is staying with some friends of mine. It’s vital to her that I get my money back. Also vital that the Law doesn’t get involved. Rather than talk to the Law, I imagine she’d just disappear. Am I making myself clear?”
Morgan said nothing. Things were much clearer.
“She volunteered an interesting story about not being your wife.”
“Let me speak to her.”
Morgan fretted as he waited for the call.
The screen showed Ava patiently sitting on a bunk, wearing a blindfold. Someone thrust the phone into her hands.
“Ah, Morgan,” said Ava. Her expression behind the blindfold was oddly unguarded, like someone sleeping.
“I can get the money. Borrow it against the Ada Swann.”
“They know about the cover story, Morgan. Just head back to Vesta.”
“I’ll get you out of this.”
“You’re an easy mark, Morgan. That’s what Mitch said, and you can’t hide things from Mitch.”
He was being told something. Undecided, he opened and closed his mouth. Finally, an impatient hand took the phone from Ava and it went dark.
“Fascinating what love will make people do,” mused Franklin. “I will speak to you tomorrow about my money.”
* * *
Mitch might be a sneaky weasel, but the Ada Swann was Morgan’s ship. It was past midnight before he found the artefact, wrapped in a cloth below a deck plate under cartons in a storage space. The boltheads on the plate were the only ones that had been turned in years.
Unwrapped, it was a weighty metal pretzel. These had been discarded by Outsiders on Mars a million years ago, like empty beer cans. Modern copies had been fabricated, faithful down to the last atom, in the fruitless search for their function, but Morgan knew with utter certainty that what he held in his hands was the real thing.
Morgan held the artefact up to the screen, and Franklin’s gaze narrowed. “So you had it all along. That annoys me.”
“The weasel brought the original with him. Of course he did, because he doesn’t trust anyone, not even Ava. He hid it on the Ada Swann until he could collect it again. Once I realised that, it was only a matter of looking.”
He was talking too much, suddenly unsure what innocence sounded like.
“Your wife told me she didn’t know about the fake.”
“She had no part in this. Nor me,” he said, just to be clear.
“And how do I know that is not another copy?”
“You’ll know when you touch it,” promised Morgan.
* * *
Franklin and Ava were at a table outside a restaurant in the concourse in Ceres Port. Despite Morgan’s insistence that they meet alone and unarmed, obviously Franklin’s friends would be watching from somewhere about.
Morgan dumped a heavy bag in front of Franklin and sat down.
“Keep quiet,” Franklin warned Ava. “And you know what will happen if you try to leave without my permission.”
Morgan couldn’t help himself. He touched Ava’s hand. “You alright?”
Franklin peered into the bag, then reached inside.
“It’s true,” he breathed. “You know when you touch it.”
“That didn’t happen with the fake, but her brother convinced me it was a matter of exposure. Otherwise he could have earned a living just letting people touch it for a price. Like a holy relic.”
Franklin turned to Ava. “Very convincing, your brother. But you heard him deceiving me, yet you claim you knew nothing.”
She shrugged. “I thought we were selling you the real thing. The luck’s an urban myth. Mitch was just saying what you wanted to hear. It’s what he does.”
Whether Franklin accepted this was difficult to tell.
“And you, Mr Morgan, do you believe the stories about luck? Of course, it is not the artefact’s original purpose, no more than a DVD twirling in the wind scares birds.”
He looked from Morgan to Ava. They had no no idea about DVD’s. Or birds.
“As I understand, the myths which have accreted round these artefacts, you only get one piece of luck. Suspiciously like the wish a genie grants, yes?”
Again the blank looks.
“You’ve got what you wanted,” said Ava. “Can we go now?”
“Ah, but have I got what I want? I was cheated, and someone should pay for that.”
“In films, ransom exchanges never go well,” said Morgan, speaking for the first time. “But I’ve got a good feeling about this one.”
“So you do believe in the luck, Mr Morgan. You did touch it after all. Yes, why not?” He waved a hand at unseen watchers.
A waiter asked if they were ready to order now. Franklin fixed him with a stare like a snake.
“I’ll come back later,” said the waiter.
“I do not think your brother understood the luck.”
“He has your money,” Ava pointed out.
“We shall see. Perhaps your piece of luck was getting out alive.”
Morgan hesitated. “What will you do with it?”
“You would not understand,” said Franklin.
Ava, who did understand Franklin, pulled Morgan away.
* * *
Safely on board, Ava said: “You were going to mortgage the Ada Swann for me.”
Perhaps Ava hadn’t known about the fake. But hadn’t she hinted Mitch hid it? Then again, she was picked up strolling back to the Ada Swann, unlike her brother, who had vanished immediately. Unless she was coming back to collect the artefact. Unless...
He would never be able to ask.
Ava was studying him. “So what happens now?”
“You could hitch a ride back to Vesta with me.”
“Lot of gold-diggers about. Easy mark like you needs to watch out. You need looking after.”
There was a silence, like they had when they’d sat drinking tea at the pilot’s station, both thinking about things.
“Do you believe in the luck?” Ava said. “Still sounds like a crock to me.”
“I think I was lucky,” judged Morgan, “if getting what you want counts as luck.”
Copyright © 2022 by David Barber
