God’s Bounty Hunter Biddy Mackay Space Detective: Book 1 T E Olivant Copyright © 2021 Tania Scott Contents Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Epilogue Afterword Prologue The man of a hundred names, currently known only as Resident 213, had finally made his way onto the roof. It was no mean feat given that the facility in which he had been imprisoned was fifty meters high. Fifty-one, in fact, the denizens of this particular exoplanet having no sense of symmetry. Resident 213 sucked in his breath as the noxious gases of the planet assailed his lungs. Technically breathable, and that was all that concerned the administrators back on the Earthsats. What did it matter to them, locked in their perpetual orbit of the home planet, if the air on Widdershins 3 stank like a millennia of cat’s piss? They didn’t have to smell it. Today though, today it smelled like freedom. And cat’s piss. 213 slammed the door behind him, sealing the airlock and cutting off the blare of the alarms. Silence, apart from the hiss of the wind. At higher altitude it could flay the skin from your body. Down here it was merely an irritation. He checked the position of the stars that were just beginning to sparkle out from the sunset. Almost time. A minor explosion behind him told 213 that his pursuers had chosen the fastest way of opening the airlock. He didn’t look around, not even when they demanded his surrender. As he stepped off the edge of the building, 213 allowed himself the smallest sigh. This century really was a devil on the knees. He closed his eyes against the rush of air as he descended. He was almost halfway down when the drone swept in below him. “Gnnnn…” Yes, a devil on the knees. The impact jolted up from the soles of his feet to his neck. He had landed in a crouched position on the sleek metal surface of the drone. He reached out with his fingertips and felt for the handholds. Some sensor on the craft must have known he was secure as it swooped upward, searching for the spaceship that had sent it. 213 would have waved down at his jailers, but he had never been one for showboating. And he didn’t want to let go of the drone. Instead, he flew off into the vibrant purples of the binary sunset. It was good enough. Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it. Isaac Newton, Laws of Motion, I Chapter 1 The only bar on Eris was full of silent drinkers. When the door opened and the stranger entered, not one of them looked up. It was the sort of crowd that would continue to drink even if the windows cracked and the icy atmosphere of the dwarf planet swept in. As the fluid in their eyes froze and their internal organs exploded with the pressure of the ice dwarf-planet, they would still enjoy the burn of that last sip of space-gin. It was that sort of place. “I’m looking for Biddy Mackay,” the stranger said, and now the drinkers did turn around, each one with the same expression of distrust. “Show us the folding,” a voice called from the corner. The stranger reached into his black suit pocket and pulled out a thin strip of metal. It glinted in the strip light. Encapsulated Rhodium, an essential component of any neutron engine. Very rare out here on the furthest edge of the solar system. Very valuable. The atmosphere in the room became a fraction warmer. “In the back,” the barman said, his thin face streaked with ill-judged silver tattoos. The tattoos looked impressive on the steroid-pumped miners of the outer solar system. On this aging white guy who had never lifted anything heavier than a soda siphon they looked ridiculous. The stranger made his way around the bar, being careful not to bump into any of the muscled forms that were hunched over their drinks. Miners were big, steroid-jacked and mostly sexually frustrated. This meant that people had died for lesser offences than spilling a pint. Biddy watched the guy as he snaked his way over to her table. She noticed her bodyguard, Phil, reach for his pocket, but she put her hand on his arm. Phil was a recovering addict and had a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later. That was fine when they were battling their way through gangs of neo-syms on the surface of New Mars, but not advisable on this tin-can space station tacked onto the edge of a hunk of rock on the outskirts of the solar system. A wrongly-timed shot might cause a tear in the atmospheric protection, which resulted in a hefty fine from the station owners and, incidentally, the death of everyone in the room. “Biddy Mackay?” Biddy narrowed her eyes at the sound of the man’s voice. When he had been at the other side of the bar, she hadn’t noticed the faint tinny edge to his speech that marked him out as a falsebody. She looked him over. The plastic suit was expensive, cut to resemble an old-Earth businessman. His engineered face showed central Asian features. This itself was unusual: most falsebodies
