“You know, she looks familiar,” Kel said to his friend as they sipped their rum at a dirty table in Talith, the largest city on Farga. The bar they sat in was filled to capacity as it was every night. “I feel like I’ve seen her before.”

“I like the one at the Black Lace better,” Ober told him, barely glancing up at the woman behind the bar. “She’s rounder and softer looking.”

Kel laughed. “That’s all you care about, Ober! Round and soft!”

“And not too big,” Ober disagreed with a sip of rum. “I don’t want her to smother me.”

Kel studied the woman behind the bar with hard eyes. There was something familiar about her. He tried to look at her more closely but about that time, a miner came in and demanded free food. The woman told him no, then tossed him across the bar when he tried to threaten her.

That was one basic difference between free traders and the people who worked the bars, Kel decided. A trader couldn’t afford to alienate a customer. You sold whatever you could and kept your customers happy. In the process, you kept yourself alive to sell another day. You didn’t strong arm customers across a counter top. You never knew when they might gang up on you.

Something like that was about to happen to the woman behind the bar, he observed. The man she’d just pushed out of the way was coming back, with his friends. They were a large group of dirty, angry miners who wanted food. There was nothing worse in this place.

“Let’s get out of here,” Ober said, seeing the same thing happening. “I don’t want to be in another fight this week.”

“But we cleaned up on med supplies, didn’t we?” Kel asked, more interested in what the woman was going to do than selling supplies. The thought made a hole in his brain. To survive here, you always had to be interested in selling anything to anyone. You couldn’t look the other way or miss an opportunity. It could mean starvation in a dark alley. Or some death that made that one look easy.

Ober leaned forward. “We don’t have any med supplies left. What’re we going to sell them if there’s a fight now?”

Kel thought quickly, his black eyes calculating. “Any Ezone left?”

Ober nodded slowly. “Sure. We got a big haul last time.”

“They’ve got blades.” Kel nodded towards the group approaching the bar. “There’s bound to be pain to be relieved.”

Ober sipped his rum and laughed. “You beat the devil, Kel. You really do.”

“And make us a nice profit?” his friend encouraged, not taking his eyes from the approaching fight.

“And make us a nice profit,” Ober agreed. “Just don’t make us dead, huh?”

“Not me,” Kel promised. “Look, it’s six to one and they’ve got blades.”

“My money’s on them,” Ober concluded with a tip of his mug in their direction. “I’ve seen her here cleaning before, don’t you remember? She used to be scrawnier, I think. Or maybe cleaner.”

“Look at her, though, Ober.”

“Don’t start, Kel,” his friend, and partner, requested, looking at him instead. “I know that tone.”

“What?”

“You aren’t watching a fight to make a profit. You’re watching the girl because you’re interested in her. There’s a big difference!”

Kel laughed. “One’s no good without the other. Besides, I’m not interested in her the way you’re implying. I’m interested in her because she reminds me of someone.”

“Right,” Ober agreed mockingly. “And I’m a wealthy miner! You were just with that woman in Free Port last week. Don’t be so greedy! Save some for me!”

Kel glanced at him then shook his head. “I would but you’re too particular! She has to be round and she has to be soft and she can’t be too big!” he quoted his friend. “I take them as I find them.”

Ober smiled. “So, I have standards! You admit you’re interested in the girl?”

“No, not the way you think.” Kel frowned at him then looked back at the group who’d reached the woman at the bar. They stood along the front of the bar and played with their blades, hitting the flat edges on their palms. He couldn’t see their faces but he was sure they were trying to intimidate her into giving them food before actually attacking. Otherwise, they would’ve been over the bar already.

“We want real food. That last was swill. We want food fit for men!”

The woman behind the bar glanced at them individually. “When the men get here, there’ll be food for them!”

The first man, the one she’d thrown across the bar, growled, and stopped playing with his blade. “We could kill you and eat your scrawny carcass!”

“You could try,” she replied confidently.

Kel had to admire her causal courage, even though it was foolhardy. There were too many of them and they had weapons. She might be able to take one or two but six was impossible. The miners were tough and mean on Farga. And when they were hungry, it could be a lethal combination. The last big food fight killed twenty men and a host of chirns, the paid women that the miners favored.

“They’re gonna kill her,” Ober insisted.

“She might make it,” Kel observed. “You said yourself that she’s been here a while.”

“I’ll take that bet,” a man said who was sitting at a table behind them.

“Me, too,” another woman added. “They’re gonna string her out and gut her!”

Credits weren’t welcome on Farga, only hard coin. The miners worked with minerals and they respected nothing less. Coins were exchanged between the tables. Ober counted the bets and the money.

“You’re gonna be out some coin here, my friend,” the second miner told Kel with a toothless grin.

“I don’t think so,” Kel replied tensely.

“You’re a fool,” the man at the next table laughed as the first man jumped over the bar. The miner punched the woman hard in the face. She went down like a log.

“Are you sure, Kel?” Ober whispered. “We could just get out of here now.”

“Shut up, Ober,” Kel answered quickly, his hands locked on the table. “My coin stays.”

The miner at the bar leaned over to look at the woman on the floor and the other miners tried to see, too. There was a popping sound from behind the bar and the first miner flew up and across the room. He smacked into the wall and didn’t get up again.

“Personal ejection device,” Kel and Ober said at the same time. They had sold the devices last year for just such an occasion. Of course, it had one small flaw. It could only be used once and five other angry miners were crawling over the bar towards her at that point.

“Won’t help,” Ober judged. “She’s dead.”

The five miners were skirmishing with the woman behind the bar. She sprayed two of them with rum then tossed a flame at them. They staggered back, on fire, falling to the floor or running out of the bar. She hit a third miner hard in the side of the head with a full bottle of rum. The cylinder collapsed but it also dented his head and he fell down.

“Two to go,” Kel said, avidly watching the fight.

“She’ll never make it,” Ober declared.

“Double the coin!” the man behind them yelled.

“Done!’ Kel agreed.

“Kel! What’s wrong with you?” Ober demanded. “This woman isn’t going to win.”

“She’s done all right so far,” he answered, though he was wondering why he was so interested. It was just a fight and she was just another woman in a bar. He’d seen thousands of both during his five years on Farga. And he wasn’t going to get off of the stinking pit until he had enough money to set himself up. Betting on strangers in fights wasn’t his style.

The woman, clearly exhausted, stomped down hard on the next man’s foot and smashed a mug into his face. The man didn’t move. He brought the blade up and plunged it down. The woman jumped up on the bar and kicked him hard in the face. She was wearing heavy miner’s boots. This time, he felt it. The second miner grabbed at her foot before it could make contact with the bar again. He pushed her backwards from the top.

Kel was on his feet.

“Where are you going?” Ober demanded, grabbing his friend’s arm. “You can’t help her!”

“I can’t just let them kill her,” Kel told him.

“If you help, you forfeit,” the men at the next table said clearly.

“Pay him the coin, Ober,” Kel said quickly. “Meet me back at the hotel.”

“Kel!” Ober shouted, but it was no use. His partner was in the thick of the fray.

“Pay up,” the two miners at the next table said, advancing on Ober.

“Gladly, friends. Could I interest you in a pair of boots that are guaranteed to stay dry and warm, even in the mineral pools?”

Kel glanced around himself. There was only one thing to do. He picked the biggest miner he could find and punched him as hard as he could. He moved in close to the other fight and dared the miner to come after him. When the miner swung at him, Kel moved. The miner hit one of the two men attacking the bartender.

“Hey!”

“Why you-”

Kel jumped aside and attacked another man, pushing him into the miner who was slowly beating the pulp out of the bartender. The woman sagged when he dropped her to get at the man who had pushed him. Another fight erupted to the left. The woman got to her feet, surprising Kel who thought she was probably near the end of her consciousness. She picked up a large food tray and splattered it all over the miner who had been about to turn away from her.

“Sweet!” Kel yelled at her. “I was trying to divert him!”

“Stay out of this!” she warned. “I get paid to handle things like this. You’ll just get hurt!”

“I’ll get hurt?” he demanded, ducking away from a hard punch by an enraged miner. “He was beating the life out of you!”

“I can take care of myself,” she answered, looking at him with her one good eye. The other had been closed by the damaging blows to her face.

The entire bar had become one big brawl. Kel saw Ober sneaking out of the back door and smiled. Ober knew when to cut his losses. A miner dealt Kel a ringing blow to the side of the head and he hit back. The miner picked him up and would’ve smashed him against the bar but the bartender kicked the miner in the stomach. He dropped Kel on the floor.

“Thanks,” Kel said, trying to smile at her even though his head was still ringing with that last blow.

“Get out of here while you’re still alive,” she advised coldly.

“Watch out!” Kel warned her as a miner clipped her neatly on the side of the head with a bottle of rum.

She spun around. Her head looked as though it might fly off her shoulders but she stayed on her feet. The miner grabbed her from behind and locked his big, dirty arm around her throat. The bartender’s eyes bulged. She pulled at the arm that was strangling her but it didn’t budge.

Kel jumped and kicked the man in the face. He had to do it twice before the miner took notice of him.

“I’ll kill you!” the miner roared, forgetting the bartender. He dropped the woman and advanced on Kel.

Kel saw her slide to the floor and wondered if she were still alive. He couldn’t see her face but there wasn’t time to consider the matter. If he couldn’t make it past this Harg, they might both be dead. He snatched the only bottle of rum he saw and hit the miner between the eyes with it as hard as he could. It didn’t slow him. The container burst open, showering him with rum.

Kel had a flame that he snapped open to light. Unfortunately, it was old and wouldn’t light. The miner bellowed and threw himself at Kel as soon as he realized his dilemma. He was only double Kel’s size and strength.

“Light, light, light,” Kel encouraged the flame that was guaranteed to light, even in the mineral pools of the underground mines. “Light, you blasted-”

The flame lit and Kel tossed it on the miner. He didn’t stay around long enough to see what happened next. The flames went up from the miner’s body while he screamed his rage and pain.

That was the problem with not allowing normal weapons on a world, Kel decided, scooping up the bartender and making a run for the door. People had to invent their own.

But there was one last hurdle before he could get out the door. The first miner who’d demanded food, was up and moving again. He was greasy and dirty and mad as hell. “I want that chirn!” he screamed at Kel over the noise of the fight.

Kel put the woman down quickly against the wall. He glanced around for a weapon of some kind but nothing was available. The man was three times his size. There was no way he could fight him, muscle for muscle. The miner advanced on him and Kel backed down.

“Look, I’ve got some really good stuff,” he tried to impress the miner. “Blue tobacco from Hodge’s. I’ve got some sweet sap from Gray’s World, good for the joints, and some erythym from the pleasure planet, guaranteed to keep you hard for 12 cycles, more, if you like.”

The miner yelled his anger. He raised his hands and made a double fist that he was bringing down on Kel’s head like a sledgehammer. Then he stopped and dropped his arms. He had a look of surprise on his filthy face. He collapsed forward, almost catching Kel beneath him.

Behind him, the bartender stood, still holding the blade in her two hands. She swayed on her feet as she looked at Kel. “Get out of here.”

“Not without you,” Kel answered quickly.

“This is my place. I’m not going anywhere.”

The bar collapsed under the combined weight of several miners. A woman with a makeshift sword began to swing it wildly.

“Come with me,” Kel persuaded. “Come back later when this is over.”

“Who are you?” she demanded. “What do you care?” She put her hand to her side and brought it back up. It was covered in blood.

“I think a blade got you,” he yelled over the increasing fury of the fight. “I’ve got some med supplies back at the hotel.”

She eyed him critically. “A coin for every time I’ve heard that and I wouldn’t be on this filthy planet.”

A chair flew against the wall near Kel’s head. “Come on,” he coaxed. “Or are you afraid you can’t handle me?”

“What?”

He shrugged and ducked so that a bottle of rum missed him. “Afraid. You know. Scared.”

“Scared? Of you?” Her sneer was not complimentary. “I’m not afraid of you,” she denied, moving aside as a man flew into the wall near her.

“I don’t get it,” he continued quickly. “How could you be afraid of me when you weren’t afraid of six miners?”

“I’m not afraid of you!”

“Then let’s go!” he recommended as a piece of flaming debris shot across the room at them.

He shoved her in front of him as he ran for the door. They cleared the building as an explosion rocked the place. “Mineral oil bomb,” he considered out loud. He’d sold the kits for them a few cycles back, after the personal ejection devices had slowed down in sales.

They landed on the hard, wet ground. Nothing was moving or coming out of the bar behind them. Flames shot through the roof and out of what was left of the door. By morning, it would be a pile of rubble that would be sifted through for whatever was left that was usable. By nightfall, there would be another crude bar shelter to take its place. That was the way things went on Farga.

Kel realized that he was lying on top of the bartender. He lifted himself up and off of her, ready to find something amusing to say that would make her come with him. He didn’t know why he found her so intriguing. It was enough for him that he did.

The fight had finally taken its toll on her. She didn’t move when he got up. Blood was seeping down her leg from the wound in her side. Quickly, he lifted her inert form and slung her across his shoulders. He looked out into the constant orange half light that passed for eternity on Farga then walked slowly back to his hotel.

* * *

“Tell me again why you brought her back with you?” Ober asked as Kel laid the woman down on the crude bed that passed for somewhere to sleep in their hotel. It was roughly made of rope and sheeting that was strung to the walls.

The mining world of Farga was dirty and crude. It was the repository of great mineral wealth and the last stop for many men’s dreams. Those who worked the mines lived to find the next big strike that would make them wealthy and famous. The others waited for that moment to pounce on their prey and strip them clean. It wasn’t an easy or safe way to live.

“She needed help,” Kel replied, looking at her.

The miners who called Farga home knew their lives would be shortened by their exposure to the raw elements. Most didn’t last at all and headed for home, if they had one. Sick and exhausted, broken in spirit and mind, they left as others came. There were fortunes to be made here.

Traders from all over the system stopped here regularly to try and sell the miners goods and services. They never ventured near the mines. They were too dangerous and too filthy. Instead, commerce was done in the bars and hotels that littered the planet. Most of these establishments had been there for generations. They offered barely edible meals for outrageous prices and Fargan rum, the strongest drink in the system, for whatever they could get. The more the miner’s drank, the more they gambled and ate and spent their money on chirns. They didn’t mind their stinking, detestable lives so much when they were drunk. The bars tried to keep them happy.

It took a certain kind of person to work the trader circuit around Farga and another kind to work the bars and hotels. Kel Radley and his friend, Ober Gale were the former kind of person. They were observing the latter.

She still hadn’t regained consciousness. She was covered in mine dust and blood. Her hair, the color of the black mine dust, was cut short, shaping her head with small curls. The rest of her face was a mess. Her lean, muscular body was limp and dirty. It was impossible to tell her age. She was the size of an adult but that didn’t always mean anything.

“What are you going to do with her?” Ober wondered. “You aren’t . . . not now!”

Kel didn’t have to hear the rest of that statement. “No! I’m not desperate, Ober! And I’m not kidding. She reminds me of someone.”

Ober continued to look at him with disbelief written clearly on his squat face.

“She could’ve died back there.” Kel continued when Ober wasn’t impressed with his original argument. He went to find something to wash her face.

“And?” Ober waited impatiently. “People die here every cycle. They wouldn’t all fit in this room.”

Kel searched around the room. There was another bed for Ober and a small table made of useless rock that had been mined from the mineral pools. Their packs of supplies and products for sale made up the rest of the cramped space. The walls were made of thinly cut inorganic material and spliced together with resin that had hardened at the top and bottom of the space.

“She’s different,” Kel added, coming back with a med pack. “She’s . . . interesting.”

Ober sank down on his bed. “I knew it! Kel, she’s half dead and filthy! At least Lillie’s girls are clean!”

“I don’t pay!” Kel reminded his friend. “Besides, it’s more than that. I can’t explain it right now. I just have a feeling about her. I know it doesn’t make sense. You’ll just have to trust me.”

He popped open a medicated cloth that was damp and cool. The package claimed that it prevented infection. Slowly, carefully, he cleaned her face, examining the cuts and bruises that covered her cheeks and chin. He noticed that she was wearing a small earring in one ear. Worthless scrap metal, his keen eye told him. Otherwise, she probably would’ve been relieved of it years ago. It was an interesting design though. Like her. He was sure he had seen it before, also, like her. But he couldn’t place it.

Ober joined his friend, staring down at the unconscious woman on the bed. “She does look familiar.” He snorted. “She also looks dead!”

“She’s strong. She’s gotta be tough to have survived here at all. You saw the way she took out those miners.”

“So,” Ober began to speculate. “You’re going to wait here in Talith until she gets better. Then what? Tell her she looks familiar and leave? Is that the plan? Because I thought we were taking stuff over to Free Port tomorrow. Wasn’t that the plan yesterday?”

“Ober, you plan too much,” Kel said. He disposed of the medicated cloth then looked at her hands and arms for any markings that might be familiar. No tatoos to show ownership. Nothing on or about her that would suggest who she was or where she was from.

Groaning, he sat down stiffly on the floor beside the bed to nurse his own wounds. The woman on the bed didn’t move but she was still breathing. He opened another med pack with his teeth and cleaned the cuts and bruises on his face and hands.

“Plan too much?” Ober was outraged. “Plan too much? Like we’d ever have enough credits to finance our own shop without my planning? Like you wouldn’t have paid every cent to those miners tonight without my planning?”

“What did you do?” Kel asked. He smiled and laid back on the hard floor. His body was one massive ache. He wished he’d had a little more rum before the fight. Maybe he could’ve passed out, too.

“I sold them what they needed and ended up with more coin than we had to start with! That took planning, my friend. I could’ve just tripped along after some woman but instead I kept my head and made us some coin!”

“You’re the best, Ober,” Kel told him with a yawn. “How about the ezone?”

“I could’ve sold all we had but I only had a few packs with me. We need to stock up, though. The rainy season is coming and you know how irritated everyone becomes.”

“I know, I know,” Kel agreed. “The miners stand around all day in pools of mineral water. Who can blame them if they hate the wet weather?”

“Not me,” Ober replied with a smile. “Besides, I think this new drying solution is going to be a big seller! If it works, maybe the miners won’t be so nasty!”

Ober glanced at his friend. Kel was already asleep on the floor with his hands behind his head. His face was bruising, too, but the woman had taken the brunt of the fight. He got up and went to look at the earring that had captured Kel’s eye.

It was made of some cheap metal that was already old enough to begin corroding. He considered that it must mean something to the woman for her to leave it in her ear. If it didn’t come out soon, it was going to get infected. On Farga, that meant losing some body part. The place was a massive pit of infection. It was too damp, too hot, and too dirty.

Like Kel, he speculated that the girl had been there for some time. She knew how to take care of herself. Yet, she left that earring in place. He looked at it again, carefully. He didn’t want her lashing out at him. It was an interesting design. It looked familiar to him, too, but like Kel, he couldn’t place it.

He looked at the woman’s hands. You could tell so much about a person by their hands. They were shaped nicely, with very long, slender fingers and delicate wrists. The calluses and scars showed her to be a drudge but the shape of her hands proclaimed her an artist. One of her fingernails was gone. A white scar showed that it wouldn’t grow back. He shuddered to think how that had happened.

Ober looked at her palms that Kel had haphazardly cleaned with the cloth. He had a passion for reading the lines in a person’s palm. It was how he made all of his decisions. He’d decided to be Kel’s partner because of the lines and the strength in his hands. An old woman had shown him the secrets when he was a child and he’d never forgotten them.

The grooves in the bartender’s palms were startling. They were clearly etched in black dust so there was no mistaking them. Ober didn’t know where this woman had come from but he could see where she was going. There was great pain and sadness in her lines, and something more. Madness and fear. And prophecy! She was strong and courageous but her life was overshadowed by prophecy.

Prophecy of what, Ober couldn’t be sure. But one thing he did know. It was best to stay away from such things. They were expensive and had the added problem of sometimes taking lives in their glorious quest. Ober meant to see himself as a wealthy, fat, living merchant someday. Not a dead hero. He had come from a family of wealthy, fat merchants who died in their beds with their children fighting over their personal possessions. He couldn’t see any reason to alter his heritage.

He looked at the woman’s face again and tried to imagine where he had seen her. He was sure he recalled her from the bar earlier in the long cycle, before they had gone to Free Port and come back again. But it was something more that was intriguing. Unlike his partner who had a penchant for romantic notions, Ober refused to be drawn into the intrigue. The best thing they could do would be to leave her there to her fate. She was only another dirty bartender, probably a chirn on the side. Doubtless, she would die a dirty bartender. Such was the way of the universe.

He lay down in his uncomfortable bed to sleep, but the lines of prophecy in the bartender’s hand haunted him.

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