by Ruby Dixon
Jerrok glares at him, and then at me, and goes back to tightening bolts on the walls. “I get all the salvage,” he grumps. “All of it.”
“All,” Adiron agrees.
“And she stays on her end of the station. We don’t have to run into each other.”
“That won’t be a problem,” I say stiffly. The less I see of this jerkface, the better. Already I kind of hate his guts. Spreading my legs, indeed.
“Fine.” The single syllable is utterly grudging. “Get your work done and be quick about it.”
“Great. You have my thanks, my friend,” Adiron exclaims.
Jerrok just waves him off and returns to repairing the wall.
That’s it? “But what about—”
Adiron pops a big hand over my mouth and shakes his head.
Uh oh. Something tells me that Sleipnir’s presence is going to be a big surprise and I’m going to be the one dealing with the fallout.
7
JERROK
I get back to work in my “junk lab” while the brothers settle their human pet in the one room I have set up as “guest” quarters for those unfortunate times when I’m unlucky enough to have someone stay overnight. They’re on the far end of the compound that I’ve reinforced and secured, so we won’t run into each other too much. It’ll be annoying to avoid half of my damn home, but I’ve lived through worse.
I do have to admit I’m intrigued by the wreck of the Buoyant Star. If they can find that and bring it to me…it’ll be an interesting diversion for a long while. Lately that’s been worth far more to me than credits. I have enough to do just fine. But entertainment? That can be sorely lacking when you live on an asteroid alone in the middle of nowhere.
Not that I would ever complain. I chose this life, and I have no regrets.
I sink into my work, carefully pulling apart the wires from an old shipboard processor. This particular model is no longer in use, but the pieces themselves are worth quite a few credits to the right buyer. So I carefully dismantle the bits, sorting them by metal and make. There’s a few transistor chips that can be placed into my broken-down bots and get them working again. A working bot brings a lot more on the market than a busted one, and I like tinkering with the bots. With a pair of tweezers, I carefully extract a chip, study it, and then place it into a safe compartment for testing later.
A shadow falls over my workstation.
I ignore it.
Someone clears his throat behind me, trying to get my attention.
“You’re in my light,” I say irritably, even though I can flick on the headlamp on my goggles just as easily. It’s the principle of the thing.
“We’re about to go,” Adiron says, shuffling to the side. The shadow disappears and I can see my tweezers again. “You got any requests?”
“Take your female with you?”
He laughs. “I meant in general. You need anything? Guns? Food? A personality overhaul?”
I set down my tweezers and glance over at him. A rueful, reluctant smile tugs at my mouth. I can be a bit…short, and Adiron truly has been a friend to me. “I don’t need a personality if I live by myself.”
Adiron grins, and I know my sourness is forgiven. We go back a ways, he and I, and we’ve seen some shit. He knows I am who I am, just as I know he’s never going to change his affable, easygoing ways. I wish I could be like him, approaching the universe with a broad, eager smile. Instead, I’d rather the universe just left me the kef alone.
He approaches me and holds out a bag. “Some extra credits, just in case you need anything for Soph.”
I take the money and toss it down onto my cluttered workstation. “You’d better hope I don’t need it.”
“Oh, I do.” He smiles and then it fades, quickly. With a thoughtful look—rare for Adiron—he holds out another bag. “This is for Sophie…if we don’t come back. She’s a good kid, but she’s seen some shit. Just…if we don’t come back in a few months, promise me you’ll help her find someplace safe to land? Not with someone that’ll enslave her again.”
I grunt, taking the second bag and tossing it next to the first. “How do you know I won’t just take her credits for myself?”
“Because I know you.”
“Enslaved, huh?” I can’t help but ask.
Adiron nods. “Six years. Praxiians.”
I grimace. Not my favorite species. I refuse to feel sympathy for the human, though. She’s going to be one big nuisance. “You’d better come back,” is all I say. “You know I hate having a guest.”
“Sophie won’t be a bother. I promise. Like I said, she’s a good kid.” He hesitates again, rubbing his jaw. “Also, I feel I have to say this, but…don’t touch her, either. I know she’s human, but it’s her body.”
Does he really think I’m that keffing hard up I’d just grab his human and shove my cock into her? I glare at him, irritated, and knock on my leg. It clanks, metallic-sounding and hollow. I do the same to my arm, and then my side. “Remember all this shit? Remember how many pieces the Threshians left me in? You think sex is ever on my mind?”
He just grins, all dopey, easygoing buddy once more, and seeing him reminds me of our military days, when Adiron used to make the same expression right before we headed into battle. I’m surprised at how much pain his smile causes me. Thought I was over that shit.
Guess I never will be.
“Like I said, I had to say it. I wouldn’t leave her here with you if I didn’t trust you.” Adiron gestures back in the direction of the docking bay. “We’re about to head out. Sophie knows. Just wanted to say thanks before we ship out.”
“You know I hate emotional shit,” I manage gruffly, turning back to my workstation. “Just go on. I’ll hide my tears for later.”
He laughs, slaps my back so hard I nearly drop my tweezers, and it sends a riot of pain up my cybernetic synapses. I grit my teeth and ignore the sharp shock of it, because he didn’t mean it, and get back to work.
All gets quiet again. The Little Sister launches, shaking the hangar bay and a few parts off of my workstation. My junk lab is two rooms over, but the entire asteroid is a bit more “rattle-y” nowadays. Needs more work than I can do, but I’m just one person. Even if she falls down around my ears to nothing but one single room, I’ll manage. I can live in one room. Just one small, tight room with nothing but the sour taste of recycled oxygen in every breath and—
I push away from my workstation, hating the turn of my thoughts. I slap my cybernetic arm, because it sends a torrent of shocks up through the circuits and a zing of pain along my nerve endings. Good. The pain helps distract me. I pace away, shoving aside a rusted hulk in my path, and head out.
I need a carcinogel stick. Maybe two.
I keep trying to give them up, but some days, a male just needs a good, long puff of death on his breath to take away the taste of recycled oxygen. So I go to my quarters, pull out my too-light pack of carcinogels, and head across the old station toward the terrarium.
Once upon a time, back when I was a soldier, we couldn’t smoke our carcinogels in our quarters. If we wanted to puff up, we had to go outside. It was habit to grab your smokes and head on out, and the moment you passed through the doors, it smelled like old carcinogel sticks. There were always a few friends out there, and you could talk shit and smoke and unwind. I have fond memories of those days, and maybe out of respect of those long-gone friends, I still head “outside” when I need a smoke.
The terrarium’s about as close as I can get to outdoors here on the station. Once upon a time, when this was a military base, these quarters belonged to the females. Someone must have liked gardening and convinced the higher-ups that they needed a greenhouse of some kind, because the terrarium is one of the largest rooms on the station, and it’s top to bottom covered with greenery. I’ve let it get overgrown—mostly because I don’t care—but sometimes I like looking at it. Air feels fresher out here. Cleaner.
I flick the end of my carcinogel, igniting the self-li
ghting mechanism, and it flares up. I take a deep puff, inhaling the awful fumes, and watch the greenery around me idly. There’s no one to talk to, of course. All’s silent. But it’s a comfortable, familiar act and it calms my rattling nerves.
I hate that my brain’s misfiring after one keffing visitor. It’s because it’s a change, and I hate change. I like routine. I like…
My gaze falls on something ahead on the overgrown path. It looks like, well, I’m not entirely sure. Curious, I suck down another drag on my carcinogel and tuck the other into my pocket, making my way over to the dark lump on the overgrown cobblestones. As I do, a smell hits me.
And I realize what it is.
Keffing hells. Did Adiron’s human take a keffing SHIT in my terrarium?
8
SOPHIE
Even though I would love nothing more than to hide out in my room for oh, the next eight to ten weeks or so, there’s a few problems with that.
There’s no food dispenser.
There’s also no bathroom.
What kind of monster makes private quarters and doesn’t give someone a damn bathroom of their own? I’m a little irked at the thoughtlessness of it, along with the betrayed feeling I can’t quite shake at being left behind to care for a very expensive cat. Lizard. Whatever.
As if he knows I’m thinking shitty thoughts about him, Sleipnir butts his head against my hand, making that crackly noise in the back of his throat that means that he wants attention. Absently, I pet his head as he drapes his big body over my crossed legs, and I scratch at his smooth, sleek skin and consider my surroundings.
At first, I thought my room was a decent size and was kind of happy about that. The bed is two smaller ones pushed together, and the plas-blankets that cover it don’t seem to be the freshest, but they’re clean. There’s no pillow—that doesn’t surprise me after years of alien life—but I can make one. The good news is that there’s plenty of room for Sleipnir to cuddle up next to me, which he LOVES to do, and won’t knock me off of the bed like he did back on the Little Sister. But as the minutes tick past, I start to wonder.
Why do I have such a large bed?
I can’t help but notice that my room isn’t really a bedroom, either. It’s not private. There’s a large, motion-sensor sliding door that leads to the hallway that works—but only just. It groans like a dying thing whenever I try to activate it, and tiny plumes of smoke waft up from the tracks. I get the impression it’s not meant to be used, and so I leave it alone. There’s another door that leads down a dark hallway filled with clutter. Storage, I imagine. There’s no comfortable sitting in this room, either—no tables or chairs, no cushions on the hard metal floor, no nothing to make it a place to relax.
A home.
There’s nothing on the patchwork paneled walls but rust, and any sort of entertainment unit is long dead.
In short, there’s absolutely nothing to do but sit on the bed and stare at the walls. And not pee. Or eat.
“Not much of a guest, am I, Sleipnir?” I scratch underneath the carinoux’s chin.
Still, I’ve had worse. I think about the last owner I had, and my bed before I came to live on the Little Sister. My owner was a praxiian, a warlike cat species that believes in guests and family all piling into the same bed. I had to sleep with my elderly owner and his wife, and since I was a slave, that meant he fucked me in front of his wife and guests on the regular.
So I guess I can’t complain about a quiet bed parked in the middle of an un-private room. I just worry that the size of the bed and the lack of privacy means that I’ll be on my back and servicing again. I don’t want to—god, I don’t want to—but if it’s only me and that filthy, rag-covered alien here on this asteroid, what can I do?
I like to think that I’ll fight, but honestly, the fight was beaten out of me long ago.
More likely, I’ll just endure it, suck up my feelings, maybe have a good cry, and then keep on surviving as best I can.
With those unpleasant thoughts drifting through my head, I lie down and begin to read my tattered copy of Outlander once again. I read a few chapters as Sleipnir snuggles against me, all warm heat and supple cat body, and then I doze. When I wake up, my book’s on the floor, Sleipnir is missing, and I have to pee something fierce.
I glance around, feeling lonely and isolated, and go to find a bathroom. Even aliens have to use the toilet, so there has to be one of some kind. I wander down unfamiliar-looking halls, crowded with broken junk and old containers, afraid to touch anything. Even the doors don’t exactly look like any sort of bathroom door I know of, and I worry I could open the wrong sort of thing and tumble into a broken airlock. I cross my arms tightly and decide to go looking for Sleipnir or my host—whichever I find first.
There’s a low sound of clanging, of metal on metal, and I follow it down the junk-strewn hall, pushing aside low-hanging tubes that dangle from the ceiling. Up ahead, there’s a large room filled with more junk, but there’s also a good-sized table and a light. In front of the light, the goggle-wearing alien hammers at a metal sheet, making an ungodly amount of noise.
I take a few steps inside the room and wave awkwardly.
He looks up at me. His lip curls, and then he goes back to work, hammering.
CLANG. CLANG.
Er, okay. I move a few steps closer, shouting to be heard over the metallic racket. “Can I talk to you about the bathroom situation?”
He drops his tools as if in disgust, putting his hands on his hips. “Oh. So now you want to talk about it?”
“Um…yes?” I’m a little startled at his viciousness. Why is he being such a prick? Some people hate humans for no reason, but surely the brothers wouldn’t leave me here if that’s the case?
The male alien just shakes his head, picking up his hammer and putting aside the sheet of metal. “You’ve got some keffing nerve. That’s all I’ll say. Don’t they teach you humans manners back where you’re from?”
I bristle. Okay, it seems I was wrong, and this guy is just an unrepentant asshole. “I could say the same about you. Why are you being so nasty to me?”
“Me nasty?” He snorts. “That’s rich.”
Jesus Christ, who peed in this guy’s cereal? “Listen, jerk—”
“Jerrok,” he snaps.
“What?”
“My name is Jerrok not ‘jerk.’”
Clearly there’s a miscommunication here. “Jerk” fits him a hell of a lot more, though. “I didn’t come out here to pick a fight,” I say stiffly. “I just need to know where the facilities are, since I’m going to be living here for the next few weeks.” When he doesn’t move, I intensify my glare. “Would you rather I just pee in a damn corner?”
He looks up, jaw hardening. Maybe he’s realizing this isn’t a conversation he’s going to win. He knows he has to show me the bathroom, right? He takes a menacing step toward me, and I cringe backward, anticipating a slap or a shove of some kind—
But he only moves right past me and down a second hall, which has a door with vaguely familiar markings on it. He slams the damn thing open and gestures at it. “I expect you to use the keffing thing.”
“Why…else would I ask where the bathroom was?”
“And stay out of my way,” he adds, gesturing at the larger room with his equipment in it. “Touch nothing in here. In fact, don’t touch anything outside of your room.”
“Not even the bathroom?” I ask, unable to resist lobbing back a sarcastic bolt.
“You know what I mean, human.” He stomps over to his workbench and turns his back to me.
Not for the first time today, I wonder if it’s too late for Adiron, Mathiras and Kaspar to turn around and come get me.
9
JERROK
I come from a long line of junkers. The un’Rok family has always been station trash. I know some people are bothered by narrow, metallic halls and the scent of recycled air, but it’s comforting to me. I prefer it.
I definitely prefer it to people.
>
I like the bland, industrial smell of my station. I like the smells of grease and char, of old exhaust and even the fake smell of old plas and even older carcinogels. My station smells familiar. Or at least it did until today. Because when I go into the lavatory, it smells like soap. The counters have been scrubbed free of old dust and water stains, and the mirror’s freshly washed. In fact, as I look around, the entire room practically keffing sparkles. It smells fresh and clean and I hate it because I know who did this.
It’s like she’s keffing with my head — shitting on the floor and then cleaning the bathroom so thoroughly you can eat off the floor.
I’m sure it’s all a game to force me to confront her, but I’m not going to play along.
Her scent is all over the station, though. It’s light and feminine, almost floral in its sweetness, and there are traces of it up and down the halls, and it seems everywhere I turn, she’s in my nose. It bothers me.
This is why I hate visitors. Because even when they’re not in the room with me, they’re still present in some way. It’s maddening, and it affects my ability to concentrate. I do my best to ignore all of it, turning back to scrapping one of the latest sling-drives I’ve acquired. If I focus enough, I can get most of it done before I collapse into bed. Hopefully the dreams won’t come if I exhaust myself. Most nights they don’t, but sometimes, when my brain won’t quiet, they creep up on me. Tonight feels like one of those nights, so I grab a second sling-drive and thump it down on the table next to the first.
I’ll stay busy until my eyes won’t remain open.
I’m up to my elbows in delicate wiring when there’s a knock on the wall. It’s in the direction of the doorway, and when I look over, teeth gritted, the human stands there.
“What?” I growl. Twice today? Doesn’t she have things she can do?
She clears her throat delicately and takes a step forward. “I was looking for the food dispensers and I can’t seem to find one anywhere. If you can tell me where they’re located, I’ll get out of your way.”