Unconstant Love

by Timothy J Meyer

  The last few words of his tirade and the second wave of divebombing Spurs are both interrupted when the Lover's warp drive completes its calculations. The Gate stretches near-invisible tendrils of interplanetary velocity out to envelop the Briza. With that paradigm-shifting lurch of nausea, it slingshots the ship fast enough to defy reality.

  One moment, they were seconds away from death by fire and ditrogen. The next moment, they're speeding away from the sector at faster-than-light speeds, leaving Thaksu, Gertie Guspatch and a budding galactic war behind.

  Moira's not thinking about any of that. All her attention is focused on that rivet, vibrating from the sheer exertion of interstellar travel, threatening to rupture at any moment and suck Moira into the nameless space between realities.

  CHAPTER 27

  Flask steps off the boarding ramp and onto the lily pad. He does so with zero confidence, keeping one foot on solid teltriton and testing the rubbery yellow surface with his boot. Part of him expects – quite reasonably, he thinks – that the entire thing will give way beneath his probing foot and plunge him into the reddish water below. The other part of him knows that the lily pad's clearly strong enough to support The Unconstant Lover so it can probably support him too.

  Nemo has no such reservations. He stomps straight off the ship and wanders a few feet into the planet's exceptionally muggy air. He wears the same grumpy expression he's worn the past three days; all the primordial landscape appears to have no effect on his stormy disposition.

  “This is Pok?”

  “I wanted Kagno, remember,” Nemo calls over his shoulder. “With the electromag storms.”

  Flask, the lifelong urbanite, examines their surroundings and attempts to imagine something worse.

  Trees, thick and towering as starscrapers, stretch out as far as the eye can see, their grooved bark carpeted with sickly yellow moss. Overhanging branches, draped in similar stringy vegetation, weave together into a drooping canopy. Only the most daring daylight squeezes past that canopy, speckling the water and plant life below.

  That water, a murky and unnatural shade of maroon, swallows the roots of every tree in sight, a miniature ocean that sinks, Flask imagines with a shudder, to an unfathomable distance below. The closest thing the bayou can offer to solid land are the lily pads. Enormous yellow circles of half-rotted plant matter, they float on the swamp's surface, presumably tethered to the distant lake's bottom by unseen stalks of unimaginable strength.

  It was atop one of these impossibly strong lily pads that The Unconstant Lover touched down, much to everyone's incredulity.

  “And we're sure it'll hold the ship?” Flask barks out to Quicksilver, where she stalks the pad's perimeter, pistols loose in her hands.

  The woman turns to regard him. “No.”

  His confidence restored, Flask braves the walk to where his cousin stands, covering his nose against the stench. “Moons, this place fookin' stinks, don't it?”

  The swamp chooses not to reply. Instead, something croaks, something else splashes a distance away and something still else flaps past overhead on half a dozen wings.

  Thoroughly bored by the wildlife, Nemo has turned his attention away from the landscape and is instead examining the Lover, looming over them. “You know,” he appraises, glancing this way and that, “she don't look so bad to me. Maybe a few days,” he starts to estimate and Flask can already see the Ortok's expression at this estimation, “and we can–”

  Somewhere, in the depths of the swamp, comes a most unnatural sound – the revving of a driftmotor.

  This sound stops Nemo dead in his buhoxshit. “Bloom is fucking that?” he bemoans, not turning around to look.

  It's Quicksilver, of course, who has all the details. “Vehicle approaching,” she summarizes. “I'd say north but it's hard as fuck to tell with all these trees. Waterbourne, I think. There,” she points and Flask turns to squint. “You can see the ripples.”

  Flask could squint all day towards Moira's supposed ripples and see nothing. Moments later, though, he does spot the vehicle as it emerges from between the trees. From his limited experience, watercraft might as well be sorcery but, soon as he sees that swampskimmer round the corner, he knows the thing's weird. Made from some strange material – wood or ceramic or acorns for all Flask can tell – it comes puttering between lily pads and beneath low-hanging branches. The ungainly thing's powered by a massive rear-mounted driftmotor so loud it echoes through the bayou for miles.

  “Natives?” Flask wonders, more suing for theories than supplying an answer.

  “I mean, sure.” Quicksilver shrugs. “Planet ain't uninhabited, remember. Just backwards as fuck.”

  The longer Flask watches the thing, the more convinced he becomes that it isn't weaving about randomly through the bayou. Instead, it keeps coming closer, an observation not lost on either of his companions. Those Lawman pistols are taking aim long before Flask bothers to free his own pistol from its holster.

  Natives do materialize, clinging to the swampskimmer's side as it draws closer. Stilt-legged, swan-necked, spear-beaked creatures grip the gunwales of their watercraft with enlarged prehensile feet. In their cumbersome hands, they grip cumbersome looking firearms, held together with bandages and prayers. Once they're within spitting distance, a few of the creatures leap suddenly from the approaching skimmer and, great webbed feet unfolding, come dancing across the surface of the water and straight onto the lily pad.

  Caught by surprise, Quicksilver hesitates, backpedaling with both weapons raised to fire on the nearest stilt-walkers. There's a tense moment as the swampskimmer thrums to a stop and three natives, their rifles held loosely in their claws, stalk the edges of the lily pad. Clustered together, the three pirates are uncertain how to respond to these newcomers, besides with rank and immediate violence.

  This looks like the direction things're about to head, the natives clicking their beaks together in some bizarre native patois. When the access hatch atop the swampskimmer cranks open, all three of the Lover's crew crane upward to see who's emerging and whether they might present some answers.

  “By score of can’n her hull shot through.”

  Nemo and Quicksilver both jump to hear that drunken refrain echoing up from inside the skimmer. The Captain is grinding his teeth together as the shanty grows louder, its singer climbing an interior ladder towards the hatch.

  “Her sheets all rent to ribbons too.”

  As the truth dawns on her, Quicksilver starts to lower her weapons. As the truth dawns on Nemo, however, he's reaching for his sheathed pistol. The flintlock loose in his hand, the Captain looks for all the galaxy like he's about to plug whomever surfaces from inside that swampskimmer.

  “Ne’er felt I fear, but shed one tear–”

  What does emerge is a monstrous head and shoulders, skin mottled gray and wrinkled with age. As he sings, he shakes that grisly wattle that hangs beneath his great grinning mouth. The smile beneath that fleshy beak reveals a host of wide teeth, cracked and yellow. Something that almost resembles hair cascades chaotically down from his scalp, more corded ropes than luscious locks. There's only one working eye in that lumpy head, the other milked over in ghostly gray.

  “What're the,” Nemo growls through gritted teeth, “fucking chances.”

  “Ye buncha bastards,” greets Abraham Bonaventure as he emerges from the swampskimmer's hatch. Like a submariner surfacing from his submersible, the Grimalti braces both forearms across the gap, an unreadable expression on his craggy face.

  “This is expressly,” Nemo chastises to his crew, neither of them responsible for what he's looking at, “what I didn't want to happen!”

  “Ye can stand down, lads,” Abraham cooes to the natives, looking uncertainly between both parties. “We're all friends here.”

  “Oh, are we now?” spits Nemo. “You're supposed to be fucking marooned.”

  The natives fall back, clambering back aboard the swampskimmer. Abraham, meanwhile, simply splays his hands, one mangl
ed, the other whole. “Am I not?”

  “King of the molehill, huh?” grunts Quicksilver with a certain respect, watching the natives skitter about at Abraham's beck-and-call. “Imagine my shock.”

  “Imagine me shock, hearin' from ye again,” counters Abraham, deepening that grimy gin of his.

  “Of course,” sighs Nemo, all his paranoid suspicions confirmed. “Who buzzed him? Which one've you blowblags have I gotta shoot now?”

  “Me,” comes the Ortoki reply from further up the boarding ramp.

  With the clink of claws against teltriton and the rattle of spare parts, Odisseus materializes behind them all, a box under his arm. He doesn't stop to greet anyone, Abraham or otherwise, nor does he stop to absorb his swampy surroundings. Instead, the Ortoki mechanic brushes past his saltbrother and is immediately examining the Lover, his critical eye scanning for damages and malfunctions.

  Nemo flaps his arms against the sides of his duster. “Care to explain yourself or...?”

  Odisseus slams the box down at his feet, snuffing up the length of a landing strut. “Because you're a baby and grow up and I need at least a week.”

  “A week?” spews the Captain in shock. “Where, in all the moons, do you think–”

  “Bloom me out,” remarks Abraham quietly as the age-old argument rages between the saltbrothers. “Like I never bloody left.”

  “A little worse, actually,” adds Quicksilver.

  “Well, I'll let you explain it to the Pincer Maneuver, then,” exclaims Nemo, at the height of his frustration, “when they drop warp in orbit–”

  “You wanna push me?” Odisseus growls back, unscrewing a conduit from the landing strut with progressively more annoyed twists of his wrist. “Go turn the ignition right now,” he recommends. “See what–”

  “Who's that with ye, now?” Abraham squints like a grandfather, shielding the sunlight with his one working eye. “That ain't Flask, is it?”

  “Hey, yeah,” Flask greets, a little awkwardly. “Brought me on full-time. For the caper, I mean.” When Abraham keeps scowling, Flask purses his lips, searching for more words. “Nice to see ya again.”

  “Same, lad,” he acknowledges gravelly. “Bloom, thought you was the ghost of Two-Bit, first turned me eye to ye.”

  Flask swallows a sigh. “Know the feeling.”

  “What're you gonna do, then?” demands Odisseus, turning from his work to finally confront his saltbrother. “Maroon me here too?”

  Nemo scoffs. “Might wanna be careful what you wish for.”

  “Good luck making atmo, then,” Odisseus challenges, stepping a little closer and enforcing his height over the substantially shorter Nemo, “on your tertiary motivator alon–”

  “Come now,” Abraham calls down from the open hatch of the swampskimmer. “Leave off disembowlin' each other a spell.” He makes a beckoning gesture with the fewer-fingered hand. “Have a drink.”

  “Get bent,” Nemo barks over his shoulder, not taking his eyes from Odisseus.

  “Nemo.” This rebuke comes from Quicksilver, her voice so level and emotionless, it somehow still sounds like a chastisement. That's enough for Nemo to turn from Odisseus and catch Quicksilver's next comment. “Don't be a douche.”

  To Flask's surprise, this seems to strike a chord with the Captain. He sighs overdramatically and, with it, all the childish tantrum seems to melt away from his face and posture. He turns to consider the swampskimmer and his old friend, with the slumped reluctance of someone who cannot avoid his fate.

  Almost from nowhere, Nemo staggers forward, arms swinging limp and listless from his shoulders. Step by begrudging step, he slogs up to the swampskimmer, Abraham disappearing into the hatch. Nemo stops to call over his shoulder, before he reaches the strange vehicle.

  “Don't wait up.”

  Abraham is expecting a spit take. Over the years and years and years of plying his trade, he'd come to understand that his moonshine was something of an acquired taste.

  Filling his own stein, however, he hears no gagging or spewing from his guest. Once his tankard is full, the Grimalti turns back around to consider the Captain. He sits perfectly still, the foam on his lips and the white of his eyes proof enough that he actually did sample the spirit. Abraham settles back onto his recliner and waits a respectable length of time before he gently asks.

  “Thoughts?” He brings his own frothing ale-jack to his lips.

  “Strong stuff,” Nemo squeaks.

  “Me strongest yet.” Abraham savors the acrid taste that, even after months of perfecting the formula, can still strip the skin from the roof of the Grimalti's mouth. “That's all thanks to the ingredients I got to work with, tell ye the truth. Place be kinda a moonshiner's paradise.”

  “Oh, good,” wheezes Nemo, still recovering from his first sip. “That was definitely my hope, when I marooned you here.”

  “I'm sure.”

  The pair of them sit together in Abraham's cramped cabin aboard the swampskimmer. Now and then, the cabin is lapped this way or that by the bayou's soft currents or the suctioned feet of the Poki bootleggers, clambering about their vessel. On the best days, it was a little tight in here for even Abraham alone. With company, there's hardly room to turn around without upsetting some of the meager furniture the Grimalti's managed to collect during his supposed “exile” on Pok.

  Abraham's installed on his recliner, the only memento of any value he'd carried with him off the Lover. Nemo, whereas, is perched on the Grimalti's makeshift cot and the two are practially knee-to-knee, with no room even to open the door.

  Abraham is content to nurse his concoction in silence, allowing Nemo to have the next word. “You're okay here, though?” he eventually ventures, some attempt to revive the conversation. “I mean, I don't get the sense you're desperate for a lift someplace else.”

  “Ye know,” Abraham appreciates, considering his surroundings, “I ain't in no hurry, that's true. There been opportunities afore ye, don't be mistaken, but,” he savors the tankard's inky black smell, each spice and fermentation churning around in there, “there's something simpler here, ye understand? Reminds me of the old days.”

  “Doesn't everything?” Nemo remarks snidely.

  “I was talking about,” corrects Abraham, “Vhase. Back where we met.”

  This does seem to peel Nemo from his bad mood. He looks up at Abraham with new eyes, ones that cast back through the years to that prison hole, that nest of agwaifapedes, those games of Iniquity over tissue paper that would see The Unconstant Lover named. “And you're happy with that? Back in those days, running your little bootleg business, away from the booty and the battle and the shanties?”

  “Oh, I still got me shanties,” Abraham grins. Nemo's words, though, give him too cause to cast back through the months he's spent beneath Pok's soggy boughs and wandering Pok's reedy wilderness.

  He thinks on those hard weeks, when the blue glow of The Unconstant Lover's boosters was fading in the orange sky. That's when food was scarce and shelter unsatisfying and all the comfort and convenience of life aboard a modern spaceship had flown away from him. He thinks on his chancy first encounters with the natives and how suspicious they'd been of offworlders – that is, until he'd charmed them with his brewing gifts. He thinks on the months he's spent, supplying Pok's lily pad communities with fresh moonshine in exchange for goods and favor.

  He discovers that he's smiling, thinking on the simple joys of the brew, the local politics of chieftains, the greatest dangers a krobbo snapper or a tricky current to navigate the skimmer through.

  “Nah,” he decides, then and there. “Think I'll stay a spell.”

  “Fine,” resolves Nemo, a teenager affronted. “Be weird. I don't care.”

  “That's plenty 'bout me, though,” Abraham dismisses, taking a substantial gulp from his tankard and shifting his ponderous weight, the armchair creaking unhappily beneath. “Ye pulled off the caper, then, without a hitch?”

  The mere mention of the job changes every
aspect of the Captain's demeanor. In an instant, he goes from petulant child to worlds-weary adult. “You could say that. Gonna be done soon,” Nemo sighs. “One way or the other.”

  “How's that, now?”

  “We either find a buyer,” he explains without inflection or preference, “or I put one in my skull.” He shrugs one shoulder. “Not much longer, now.”

  “Thought there was Borsk?”

  He takes a long pull on his moonshine before he starts to explain the caper and every hitch they encountered along the way. According to him, everything hinged on a pair of forgotten keys. The bounty hunters, he attests, the spice rangers, the unmentioned natives, the long string of buyers left murdered, incarcerated or uninterested in their wake – all this and more Nemo attributes to one keyring, locked aboard the starship for a day and a night.

  It doesn't take someone as long-visioned as Abraham Bonaventure, old enough to see regimes rise and fall, to see the truth, to see what's actually descended on Nehel Morel. To him, to the eye of the swirling hurricane, he was simply plagued by a rash of bad luck. That alone, Abraham knows, is enough of an anomoly to spell the ending of an era.

  “Told ye no good'd come that caper,” he comments sagely.

  “A thousand times,” Nemo reminds him. “I remember.”

  Abraham is shaking his head at the memory of those first few meetings, those early discussions of how they might undertake Two-Bit's dying wish. “Too much deception. Too much sneaking about. Not enough honest freebootin'.” He makes an allowing gesture with his tankard and his half-hand. “No ill towards the dead, ye understand.”

  “A thousand and one,” Nemo sighs with resignation. “Tell you the truth, at this point, I'm about ready to leave the thing on a street corner.”

  “'tis a very 'ye' problem,” appreciates Abraham with a veteran's distance.

  It takes longer for the idea to germinate in Nemo than it does in Abraham. The Grimalti watches the thought dawn on the Captain's face in real time. “There's no absurd chance you're interested?”