Tracks in the Sand

Sun beat down on the rail station as the empty car departed. The woman sat there, resting beneath a polarised canopy. Like much of the rest of the structure, it had seen better days - the rooftop was worn down to a matte finish by dust and sand; the bars holding it up were patched red and brown from oxidation, slowed as it was by the arid air.
The woman's gaze flittered back and forth from the ground before her to the rail lines beyond, then back up to the weathered steel of the railings. The heat was sweltering - withering for any outworlder - and she had sat in it for hours. But a few more minutes would make no difference either way.
The stillness was broken by movement, a story above, at the lip of a platform anchored into the side of an outcropping. Doors swung open, the metal-on-metal scraping provoking a wince yet clearly caused by one who thought nothing of it. The rattling of a hinge slowly working itself out of its frame cut through the dry wind, the drier silence, before stopping again. Then, footsteps, boots descending the stairs down to the platform itself - slowing, then abruptly stopping, just before reaching the bottom.
"Wasn't expecting to find anyone here." The prospector's voice felt loud, but any volume to it seemed to drop away to nothing in the open air. He just sounded tired. Shrivelled. Hoarse.
"Oh, don't mind me. Just been waiting here."
He didn't move.
"Waiting for what?"
"Oh, I don't know." A wry smile started to grow across her face. "Some rain, perhaps."
She turned her head to look up at the prospector, paused as he was a couple of steps from the bottom. "And you?"
"What about me?"
"Well, did you find any."
His gaze paused, brow fighting off a furrow. "Did I find any what?"
"Anything you weren't expecting."
"Did I... find, anything I wasn't expecting to find?"
A silent nod, and her smile, was the only response he received. Cautiously, tentatively, he took another step down, before stopping there. Another step, while balancing on this knife-edge, seemed impossibly far.
"I don't expect to find anything out here, in the debris. It's just-"
"-luck of the draw?" 
He grimaced, sucking in dessicated air through clenched teeth. "Something like that."
"Right." 
A breath, a long pause. 
"Well, did you strike gold today?" She looked down, at the hardcase he carried in one hand. "Sometimes, it must feel like it's left there by someone, just for you to find-"
"Fuck you, you tell me what you're doing here!" 
The pistol was drawn from his waist in a second; the chunky, broad barrel aimed squarely at the woman's head.
"Hm. Is that Sevine Ten? Or, maybe an Oh-Eight?" She hadn't flinched - and, without skipping a beat, she turned on the end of the bench to face him fully. "A Ten, then. Very impressive, very intimidating. And a very hard kick to take one-handed, if you need to make follow-up shots. Best not miss."
That same smile appeared again - flashing across her face, just for a second.
"So." Her eyebrows raised. "Shall we talk?"
"About what."
"About the little find you made. Out there, in the old Covie dig-site."
His eyebrows furrowed. "What exactly are y-"
"The one you made a deal with Kirin for, then stiffed him over. The one you stashed - the one you're back here to pick up."
"Told Kirin to leave me alone. Decided it wasn't enough. Got nothing else to talk about with him about it."
"Oh, we know. She knows, too. So..." She gestured around at the rest of the empty station with one free hand, the other hovering at her waist. She wasn't making a move. Not yet. 
"So, no Kirin. Just me."
"Just you."
"Just me." The smile crept its way up one more time, and this time it persisted. "And I'm not as talkative."
"Sure. Not talkative."
"Sadly not." 
"You smart, then, huh? Smart enough to know what to do with it?" He shook his head, sharply. "Not a fucking chance. Nobody on this shithole world does. What, I can't ask a bit more from a fence who can't tell an alien artefact - alien alien - from some piece of junk from a crashed split-jaw ship?" He took the last step down onto the platform; continuing forwards towards her, gun in hand.
"Easy there."
His voice hardened, flecks of angry spittle flying forth and drying up on the ground where they landed. "She thinks she's the only one with friends? I should just take this thing and run, all the way to the inners, give it to some oonskie lab to pick it apart for a hundred times what you're paying." 
"Listen."
"Listen to what?"
"To me. She sent me here to off-"
"No, fuck you." The spite in his voice was audible, now. "Fuck you, fuck her. I'm already gone."
"Listen."
"No fucking lapdog sent a week late is going to stop me from being on that cab in seven minutes, and off-world by dusk." As if to emphasise the point, he jabbed the barrel of the gun in her direction, then pointed it away and up the rail tracks-
Two shots rang out. Then, belatedly, almost lazily, a third.
The woman holstered her sidearm as she stepped carefully over the body of the prospector, leaning down to examine the hardcase he carried - then, after a moment's pause, pulling the oversized pistol from his grip.
It wasn't that hard to handle. At least, not if you knew what you were doing.
-----
Sun beat down on the rail station as the blood quickly dried on the rough polycrete. The woman stepped aboard the rail car, and took a seat, setting the case down beside her. The doors sealed quietly, and it began to depart.
Category:The Weekly
Category:Seventh Circle