by TJ Berry
Another time, he said firmly, but with a touch of amusement. Your curiosity is one of your best attributes. She wasn’t sure if he meant her personally or humans as a race.
Some of the planets with habitations glowed with the energy of the null, but in ultraviolets and other invisible colors. Her gaze lingered there, taking in Dyson spheres and the lights of cities laid out in spirals.
Other beings have access to the null, just like the Bala, Kamis explained. Some are better at it, some worse. I can show you when we’re not in so much of a hurry.
An intense ball of light glowed in the distance, brighter than any of the planets they had seen so far. Kamis’ heart – which was really Jenny’s heart – beat faster. She could feel his familiarity with this type of light. It felt familiar to her as well.
There they are, he said, zeroing in on the source of the light. As they got closer, Jenny saw individual lights grouped together, which made sense. The Bala had already begun constructing towns in their new home. It was a pretty pink planet that looked calm and welcoming. She very much wanted to be there.
“Found them,” she announced.
“Good, get out of there,” said Mary.
One moment more, I just want to check in on them, said Kamis.
One of the groupings of Bala was bigger than the others. Kamis zoomed in close enough that she could pick out individual balls of light. Some bright and colored and some dimmer and swirling with black. His gaze methodically flicked through lights. Kamis was looking for someone.
While he looked in one location, she scanned on her own for someone else. She searched the little town for a light that felt like Kaila. None of the beings there felt like her wife. She started to feel anxious. Would she know if something had happened to Kaila? Would she have felt it?
She scanned the beings around the fringes of the town. Off in the distance, a grouping of Bala lights indicated a second tiny village. Not far from there she found a stand of dryads. There, calmly resting among her kin, Jenny saw her wife. Relief coursed through her. Kaila was not only alive, she was thriving in the forest of their new home. Her light glowed so brightly that Jenny’s heart ached to be there with her.
She looked for as long as she could, trying to tease out different emotions flickering in the light. Kamis’ focus helped. Kaila was mostly content, but also a little angry. Good. It was that spitfire sap that Jenny loved about her.
A wash of relief hit her so hard it nearly knocked the wind out of her. She turned back to where Kamis was looking. He’d found his children. Older, more tired, but alive and well.
There was someone near them that drew her in. A deep blue light that stopped her in her tracks. It felt calm and welcoming, but just a bit prickly. It was Gary.
The emotions that bubbled up in Jenny were complicated and ever-changing. Guilt, anger, affection, and sadness.
Interesting, said Kamis. Time to go.
Kamis pulled them home faster than they had arrived. It made her feel sick to see planets and systems moving past faster than she could see them. They were back in the hold of the Stagecoach Mary within seconds. Jenny took a moment to tap the coordinates of the new Bala world into a console on the wall before she forgot them. Her fingers shook on the touchscreen. She sank into her chair, spent.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Criosphinx
An idea struck Bào as he watched the Kilonova scoop up the little yellow pioneer ship out of the null. In the past, at other times where unicorn horn had been scarce, Reason scientists had attempted to put other materials into FTL drives. Stones, small animals, and even human bones. Most did nothing, but some types of Bala bones had an effect, ranging from a mild unpleasant odor permeating the ship to driving the crew to the brink of insanity. In all cases, the ship ran much more slowly and erratically on anything other than true unicorn horn. That might be the best way to stop the Kilonova. Bào just had to get some other Bala material into the FTL drive.
The drive was heavily guarded, but, as a necromancer, he was one of the few people allowed close to the FTL cabinet. He never really needed to be near it to do his job, but the Reason assumed that proximity to the horn would make his guidance more efficient. Truth was, with a good communications link, he could have guided the Kilonova just as easily, and a lot more comfortably, from back at Fort J.
Then there was the matter of what to put into the drive. Everything Bala had disappeared at the Summit, but the substitution had to be something magical that would move them, just not in the right direction. A trisicle would have been ideal – throw one of those in a cabinet and it would jump them into bugspace where thousands of biting beetles would appear in every crevice of the ship. He doubted that he could find any valuable trisicles just hanging around a Reason ship.
He did know of one Bala bone that was right within his grasp. Literally. After Copernica Citadel, the mermaids had fixed his hands with whatever they could find in their underwater palace. One of their treasures was the horn of a criosphinx, taken from the hold of a sunken wreck. They’d patiently picked pulverized bits of his bones out of his hand, then carved the horn to fit the empty space. It twinged now and then when he passed an open field, and he suspected that some of his cravings for fresh grass were due to the horn’s original owner.
Bào had worked late after his shift while they captured the seemingly-abandoned Stagecoach Mary. The pioneer ship had taken evasive maneuvers, taking them far off course from the Bala planet. After they’d snagged the ship he’d had to remain at his station to recalibrate their course from their new location. When Lakshmi finally dismissed him, it was late into the artificial night when the second-tier crew members rotated onto duty. He walked the empty halls, heading for the medbay instead of his quarters.
The euphoria from this new sabotage idea erased his exhaustion and put a little spring in his step. Starting the plan in the middle of the night could only help. The crew on this shift would be the cutrate personnel with slipshod methods and lackluster performance. They’d be less likely to question him and more apt to simply shrug at an odd request and do what he asked.
The medbay doors opened and a wall of sound hit him. A room that was usually sterile and silent now pulsed with the driving beat of a song that his teenage companions would have loved. Indeed, there were Priya and Rhian, leaning against a gurney with neon drinks in hand.
“Hey, I figured you were in bed long ago,” said Priya, slapping his shoulder. “You never come out with us.”
Rhian gave him a halfhearted wave and ducked off into the crowd.
“What is this?” Bào raised his voice over the music.
“Doctor Tang’s Place,” said Priya. “She’s a second-shift doctor who is also really amazing. She hosts a bar in here after hours. It’s totally not regulation and I absolutely love it. Do you want a drink?”
“I’m in need of a doctor,” said Bào.
“Are you sick?” asked Priya, looking him up and down.
“No, I just need some advice,” said Bào.
Priya scanned the crowd.
“There she is, in the surgery bay. The redhead.”
“Thanks,” said Bào. “See you later.”
Bào pushed his way through to the glass-enclosed surgery. He opened the door. The room was quiet and filled with smoke.
“This is a high roller area. Get back out on the dance floor,” said the woman with red-tinged hair. She flicked him away without looking up.
“I just need a moment of your time. I don’t want to play,” he said, stepping into the room.
“You come in, you play. House rules,” she said. Her eyes didn’t leave the four people hunkered over their cards in front of her.
“I just need medical assistance,” he said.
“Do you see anyone doctoring here?” she asked. “Play or leave.”
She gestured to an empty seat that seemed to be a repurposed crash-cart. Bào sat down, hoping it wouldn’t activate and electrocute his rear end.
“You�
��re in next hand,” she said.
“I don’t have anything to bet,” he said.
“Everyone has something to bet,” she replied. She tilted her head at him. “You’re the necro, right?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Then your wager is that I want you to find something for me. A Bala object,” said the doctor.
That made Bào uncomfortable. She would be able to find the Bala planet, or any Bala parts that people had hidden inside of them. “No, I can’t–” he started.
“Then bye.” She flicked a finger at him. “Get out.”
He needed her help.
“OK. One Bala object,” he conceded.
“Excellent.” The way she steepled her fingers reminded him of a storybook villain, but her delighted smile was all heroine.
The table was finishing a round of Unicorn Hunter, a game that Bào had played thousands of times on the raider ship. To win, a player had to find all five unicorn cards of the same house. It was nearly impossible to accomplish but the rewards were large. Most hands ended with all losers, but on the remote chance that someone did collect all of the House of Periwinkle or the House of Cerulean, they won not only the ante from that hand, but from the entire day’s play. Unicorn Hunter was a popular game at the end of the night, after the pot had grown all evening.
The current hand ended in disaster for everyone. The only person to even get a unicorn was a food service worker, who ended up with two from the House of Azure, which won you nothing.
“Better luck next time,” said the doctor, collecting the cards and dealing out the new hands. Her nametag said Doctor Tang.
Bào concentrated on the pile of cards in Doctor Tang’s hand, looking through their backs to see their faces. He dropped some into and back out of the null in slightly different locations as she dealt from the stack. Cheating at cards was one of the most useful things he’d learned to do with his necromancer skills. It was foolproof once you learned how to keep the purple lightning from giving you away.
Once the hand had been dealt, the players lifted their cards. Doctor Tang leaned back and checked the dealer’s hand. Five unicorns in that hand would immediately end the game and she would get to keep everything from that day so far. If five unicorns didn’t appear – and they rarely did – the players entered a round of intense trading and negotiations that often ended in fisticuffs. Not unlike a beefed-up game of Go Fish.
The doctor ran a hand down the front of her uniform jacket to smooth it. Bào didn’t know her well enough to know what kind of tell that was.
His hand was exactly what he’d aimed for. Five unicorns from the House of Cobalt, including Gary Cobalt and his father Findae. The players to his left tossed their cards on the table, showing a mixture of unicorns and other Bala. It came to Bào’s turn and he spread his hand out with a flourish.
“Five unicorn flush.”
The officers and grunts around him burst into unhappy groans.
“No way, man.”
“Crazy. I’ve never seen one.”
“Gary Cobalt isn’t even a real unicorn.”
The doctor narrowed her eyes at him.
“What the hell, new kid,” she said. “How did you do that?” Bào scooped his winnings out of the center of the table and onto his spot. He thought he spied the door fob to a late-model space skimmer in there, which could come in handy for a quick exit, but it would be tacky to check in front of everyone.
“Game over. Come again soon,” said the doctor, standing up and grabbing Bào’s ear. He dropped his loot as she dragged him through the surgery and into the scrub room behind it. The lights were off back there except for the blue glow of the sanitizers working overnight to clean the instruments.
Dr. Tang poked a finger into his chest.
“You little necro cheater. Do you know who I am?” She held her gold-plated nametag out to him. “I am Doctor Ricky Tang. If I were back at the Blossom, I’d toss you to the Sixian Parrot,” she said. “You don’t get to keep any of that pot. Hand it over and don’t tell anyone that I didn’t let you keep it. They need to think they have a chance.”
“I didn’t cheat, I really won,” said Bào, smoothing out his Kevin Chen face so that it looked sincere.
“Bullshit. There were only four unicorns in that deck. I counted them myself,” said Doctor Tang.
“There are supposed to be five unicorns in a regulation Unicorn Hunter deck,” said Bào.
“Yeah, well. I took Gary Cobalt out of my deck because he and I have a long-standing thing. But suddenly he’s back in there. How exactly did that happen?” She stood there with her hands on her hips.
“Uh, magic?” said Bào.
The doctor grabbed him by the ear again and pulled him toward a large open chute set into the wall.
“That’s it, you’re going into the medical waste incinerator,” she said.
“Wait,” cried Bào, struggling to get away. He pulled his head to get free and a muscle wrenched in his neck. “Ow.”
“I’m not even hurting you,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“I pulled a muscle,” he said, rubbing the spot.
“You are the worst at torture,” she said, letting go of his ear. “Just give me back the pot.”
Bào held the chips out to her.
“I don’t want the money. I honestly came in here just to ask for some medical help, ma’am,” he said, rubbing the spot in his neck that had twinged. He could feel a tight knot of muscle in there.
Doctor Tang stuffed the chips and the keys to the skimmer in her pockets.
“Ugh. Don’t call me ‘ma’am.’ Ricky is fine. Come back in the morning when the other doctor gets on. She’s actually a real…” Ricky paused. “Good doctor.”
“You’re not a doctor at all. You’re a stowaway,” said Bào, not bothering to conceal the wonder and relief in his voice. Here was someone who could actually understand him. He realized his mistake the moment the words tumbled out of his mouth.
Ricky plucked one of the scalpels out of the sanitizer. She put her free hand on Bào’s shoulder. Back here, two rooms away from the blaring music, no one would hear him scream for help. She was younger and stronger than him. In an instant, she could slice his throat and toss him down the waste chute. If he didn’t zap her with lightning, his body would be charcoal before anyone noticed he was gone.
“No, I mean. I’m fine with that,” he raised his hands in surrender. “Honestly, it helps me. I need someone who’s willing to take a risk. I need someone who can perform a small operation for me without asking a lot of questions.”
Ricky looked intrigued. “Keep talking,” she said, tossing the contaminated scalpel back with the clean ones.
“This is why I didn’t want the day shift doctor,” said Bào. “I need an off-the-record procedure done. There’s a bone that has to come out of my finger.”
“Nifty,” said Ricky. “Listen, I use the medical AI to bluff my way through food poisoning, constipation, and the other minor cases that come in at night, but I can’t do real doctor things.”
“The AI will do most of it,” said Bào. “I need your authorization code to get it started.”
“You locate a Bala object for me and you’re on,” she said. Whatever this woman’s real job was, it clearly involved a lot of cutthroat negotiating.
“Yes,” said Bào, tapping his shoulder twice with his palm the way the kids these days signaled their excitement about something. It was a habit he’d picked up from Priya.
Ricky led them back into the surgery where all the players had cleared out. The bass was barely audible from within the enclosed pod.
“Not that it’s any of my business, but what are you going to do with a hand bone?” she asked, clearing empty glasses off the surgery table.
“There are criosphinx bones in my left hand – put there after it was shattered during the war. If I can get them out–”
“You can put them into the FTL drive,” Ricky said. She set an empty glass o
n the table, her eyes wide. “You’re trying to stop the ship from getting to the Bala. Brilliant. Except that I want to go to their new planet. That was the entire goal of sneaking on here at great personal risk. Sorry, kid. I’m out.”
“No, you have to,” said Bào, sounding more and more like a beseeching Kevin Chen. “This ship can’t make it to the Bala.”
“You have friends there?” asked Ricky.
“Many,” said Bào. “But even if I didn’t, you know that as soon as we arrive all those soldiers in the lower decks are going to load up onto carriers and head down to the surface to round up every Bala being they can find. It will be genocide.”
Ricky took a deep breath at his final word. “So you are not loyal to the Reason,” she said. “Interesting.”
Bào was on dangerous ground. If he was wrong about this conwoman stowaway, she could turn him into any senior officer and he’d be held in stasis for the rest of the trip where he wouldn’t be able to use his powers to retaliate.
“Are you loyal to them?” he asked carefully.
“When it suits me,” she replied. “But the Reason has done me no favors. Especially in the last few years. Which is why I’m heading for the Bala. At least they won’t put me into a rehabilitation camp.”
“Why would you need rehabilitation?” he asked, trying to convey his skepticism of Reason tactics. She sized him up before answering.
“I don’t. But that is a conversation we will have later. Maybe,” she said. “We’ll see. So you plan to single-handedly stop a Reason warship from finding the Bala.”
“Trust me, I have more than enough power to tear this ship apart. But there are people on here who don’t want to be a party to the Reason’s plan. They deserve a chance to resist. I’m tweaking my navigation reports to put us slightly off course, but the other necromancers bring us back into true during their shift, so it’s not working as well as I’d hoped. If I can get the criosphinx horn out of my hand and put it into the drive, I’m hoping it will drop us into some other dimension like bugspace where we’ll stay for a while. At the very least it’ll slow us down and take them a while to figure out what’s wrong,” said Bào.