Extraits

SHIP HIGH IN TRANSIT

A Harja Logistics standard small shipping container was a mainstay of commerce, used galaxy-wide and across governmental boundaries. Produced from high-grade steel in huge quantities, it was precisely two metres long, a metre wide, and half a metre deep.

It seemed a lot smaller from the inside.

Ichabod Drift knew precisely how long it had been since he’d been forced into one with a hood placed over his head and anchored around his neck by a collar that his fingers couldn’t loosen, because his mechanical right eye could call up a chrono display. It had been seventeen hours and twenty-six minutes, and that information wasn’t reassuring him at all. He’d tried to batter his way out at first, but that was futile. He had very little room for leverage, and besides, standard shipping containers were sturdy things. All he’d managed to do was hurt his hands. He’d yelled as well—for someone, anyone—but all that had got him was a dry mouth and a sore throat.

He hadn’t had a drink since, and he was so thirsty his hands were shaking. He’d been unable to restrain his bladder any longer at about the twelve-hour mark. Half of his right thigh was still damp, and the container stank of piss, which was aggravating his throat further. Most of his body was damp, in fact, because although the hood was porous and airholes must have been added to the container before his incarceration, the limited airflow didn’t have a chance of counteracting the accumulated water vapour from seventeen-and-a-half hours of respiration by a six-foot-four, two-hundred-pound adult male.

A six-foot-four, two-hundred-pound adult male who was, by now, scared so bad he could hardly think straight.