Stars Beyond

by S. K. Dunstall

  “We’ve two. The other one is back down on-world.” Sixteen Santiagans on-world now. Alistair hoped they’d brought their own food. “They’re small, but they get the job done.”

  “And they’re armed,” Talli said. “If we need to defend ourselves, we can.”

  Barry scowled at her.

  Talli shrugged and sat in silence while Alistair finished the food Barry had given him earlier.

  A thought niggled. This ship didn’t have room to accommodate another fifty people.

  * * *

  • • •

  Thinking about the past wasn’t helping the present. Alistair looked at Cam’s genemod machine again.

  They’d reported Santiago, of course. As soon as he and Cam had reached the closest Justice Department branch office. They had both recorded the interview, although neither realized the other had until afterward. “Just in case,” Cam had said. “Santiago legal team is worse than a pack of salynxes, and they’ll rip you apart in the same amount of time.”

  How was the case going? Alistair opened his link. Once, he wouldn’t have dreamed of checking up on a case that was none of his business, especially not one that he was personally involved in as a victim, but there was before Zell and after Zell, and each had different priorities. After-Zell Alistair had no compunction looking up the case.

  Except he couldn’t find it.

  He went through the whole caseload for the branch office in the week before and the month after their report. Then he went through the caseloads of the two agents who’d listened so attentively and assured them they would deal with it. Nothing.

  Their report, if it had ever existed, had gone.

  Alistair stared at the screen. Santiago would take over the Ort as soon as they could, leaving fifty people who knew too much. How many other lonely worlds had this same scenario played out on, with the Justice Department blatantly ignoring the injustice?

  He closed the link. The screen went back to what it had been playing before. News around the clock, updating and replaying the day’s events. Just what your average patient wanted to see when he came out of a genemod machine.

  The news feed changed to the spaceport. From the light, Alistair guessed it to be around midday, so not current. Paola waited with some sober-suited Honesty League people for a Justice Department shuttle to land.

  Was that why the Honesty League had become so powerful? Because they were the only ones who could demand justice and get it at the moment? What would they say about how Santiago had treated the Zellites? About how the Justice Department had conveniently lost the report he’d made?

  Maybe it was time to find out.

  Alistair opened the recording he’d made of their meeting with the agents. Should he? Yes, if it helped him to save fifty people.

  He forwarded the recording.

  13

  NIKA RIK TERRI

  “We have ID,” Nika said. “It’s in the records on Another Road.” And in her own personal database, as soon as she could access it. “Our old enemies, Agents Brand and Bouwmeester. We have Brand’s full profile, right down to the fingerprints. I’ll build a disposable lens that will fool the security for iris checks for both of us—it might obscure our vision a little, but we can take them out once we’re in.” She’d build extra sets in case they needed another iris ID to retrieve the Songyan. “We can build skin gloves over the top of ours so the fingerprints can work. Something temporary so it sloughs off in less than a day.”

  “You think you can do that?” Snow said skeptically. “If iris checks were so easy to do, everyone would be doing them.”

  “I changed Tamati’s iris print.”

  “I bet that was permanent.”

  Nika grinned at him. “Snow, in olden times, before genemod machines, they put artificial lenses in the eye to correct sight.”

  “We’re fighting for our lives, and Nika stops to give a history lesson.”

  “Some of those lessons have been useful,” Josune said. “Giwari, for example.”

  “I thought when I apprenticed to Nika Rik Terri I’d learn cutting-edge modding. Not”—he flung a hand out, hit the wall—“not continual repair and . . . and learning how to break into places by pretending to be someone else. I already know how to be a doctor. And I didn’t really want to learn how to be a criminal.”

  Every word was a barb. And every word was true. Nika wasn’t doing the job she was supposed to—teaching her apprentice.

  “Do you want me to release you from the apprenticeship?”

  Snow stared at her. “What? No. I earned this. You can’t kick me out.”

  “I just thought—” What had she thought? She’d been feeling guilty all along because she wasn’t training him properly.

  Josune put a hand on Snow’s arm. “Don’t worry, Snow. She won’t kick you out.” She said to them both: “Our nerves are stretched. We’ve been on the run a long time. We’re exhausted. Let’s get this Songyan and get out of here.”

  Snow looked away, down at the floor. “Sorry, Nika.” It was a mumble.

  “I’m sorry too. I promise I will train you better.”

  “You are training me. Even if it is only how to clean genemod machines. Which I already knew.”

  “How do we get a machine to do these mods you want to do?” Josune asked.

  Nika wasn’t sure if Josune was asking because she was impatient to have it done, or if it was because she simply wanted to stop her and Snow.

  “I don’t know.”

  Neither did Josune.

  “If I was to admit to being the criminal you are training me to be,” Snow said, “maybe I could share some of the learnings from my short-lived commercial enterprise.”

  They both looked at him.

  “You’ll do anything for money on the docks,” Snow said. “It’s how you survive.”

  Except Snow, who’d refused to play by the dock rules. And that wasn’t survival. When Nika had met him, he’d been about to be beaten up.

  Josune was already scanning the link. “There’s a whole street of modders here.”

  “Let’s take weapons, then,” Nika said. “We know how dangerous things can get down there.” And their own supplies.

  “Hey.” Snow pointed to himself. “I’m the only apprentice. Okay? Even if you pick someone else up.”

  She thought he might be genuinely worried. “Believe me, Snow. You’re a handful on your own.”

  “Good.”

  * * *

  • • •

  They stopped by a merchant and bought mutrient, Arrat crystals, naolic acid, and small amounts of minerals and other compounds that Nika insisted they needed. The next stop was an electronics shop. Nika bought two new links.

  Then they went hunting for modding shops.

  They weren’t studios, not here. They were little more than body shops, and they reminded Nika of the shops she’d walked out of before she’d walked into Snow’s studio. Back then she’d been arrogant enough to think of it as little more than a shop too.

  How the mighty had fallen.

  There were six modders in the street along the spaceport. By the time they came out of the sixth, even Snow looked dispirited. “Which one?”

  Nika pointed to the one at the end of the street, the first one they’d looked at.

  “But that’s the strangest,” Snow said.

  “He has a Kedder in there,” Nika said. “And it’s in reasonable working order.” She led the way back.

  “This place gives me the creeps,” Josune murmured to Snow. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “She usually does,” Snow said. “Even if she is crazy.”

  The modder greeted them enthusiastically, rubbing his scaled hands together. The sound was like two pieces of wood rubbing against each other. “Back again. I knew you’d come back. I’m the
best there is.” He flexed his muscles for them, the way he had when they’d first walked in, and winked at Snow. “I can give you muscles you wouldn’t believe.” He leered at Josune. “A girl likes muscles.”

  Nika looked at the vest. She thought he might have cut the sleeves when he’d flexed his muscles once too often and the shirt had torn. He didn’t understand his muscles, so hadn’t had the mod long. There were other signs, too, that the mod was recent.

  She tapped his chest. “Some people might like muscles, but what’s your answer for the scales? You look like dried-out leather.” She felt the rippled skin and frowned. “You used a low-grade coagulant. It won’t last. The shine will be gone in a week.”

  “So you think you know about modding, do you. Let me tell you, little lady. This is my design, and I know how long it will last.”

  Nika turned away. “Did you use orange crystals for the blue? You’ve had this design for, what, three days? The color is already losing its luminosity.”

  “You’re making that up.”

  “Check your hairline. Compare your scales.” She took one of his hands and placed it against his scaled arm. “Color variation already. See.”

  “It’s meant to be like that.” The modder moved to a screen and examined his hairline. “I can’t see any difference.”

  “Then you should get your eyes fixed. Snow, you note the variation. Using sodium salts gives a discoloration that fades. It’s an effect that works beautifully for a short-term boost, but it doesn’t last. Including orange crystals gives a longer intensity, up to a month.”

  “How do you know I didn’t use orange crystals?” The modder was still examining his hairline.

  Snow answered, “Because the scales would have an orange luminescence to them, not gray.”

  “Do you know how much orange crystals cost?”

  “Of course we do,” Nika said. “What’s your name?”

  The modder abandoned his hairline and opted for preening. “You can call me Drake.”

  Nika sighed and moved over the faded certificate on the wall. “Gregory Eames.” She’d never heard of him. But not calling him by the name he wanted wasn’t going to get them the use of the Kedder. “Well, Drake. We want to use your machine. We’ll pay you for time.”

  He backed away. “I want nothing to do with illegal modding.”

  Out on the rim they’d probably have started talking price by now. Nika slapped down her ID. “Nika James. Body modder. Registered.”

  He looked from the ID to her, and back to the ID again.

  “How much?” she asked.

  “A thousand credits, and you don’t use my supplies.”

  “Done.”

  “Nika,” Snow said. “You’re supposed to bargain. He would have taken it for seven hundred.”

  “Credit me with some brains,” the modder said. “I would have insisted on at least eight. You really wanted to use a machine.” He looked at the burn on her jaw. “And I don’t do wiring either.”

  “We do.” Nika said to Snow, “You’re about to learn how. But first—”

  “I know.” He gave an exaggerated sigh. “We clean the machine.”

  “What do you know about Kedders?” she asked him as they pulled the inlet valves off. One of them was almost rotted through. She turned to Drake. “Have you another inlet?”

  “If I had, don’t you think it would be on the machine?”

  Probably not. “Another hundred credits if you have one better than this.”

  She could see he wanted the money, wanted to lie.

  “Okay. We’re not using inlet three.” She looked at Josune, who always carried some tools. “Unless you can pull something together.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. It’s liable to be expensive, given what he charges.” Josune started to wander around the studio, stopped, looked at Drake. “I’d think a thousand credits would get us a private showing. Can I lock the door?”

  “That’d be worth another two hundred credits,” he said.

  “Ten.”

  “Ten. What do you think I am?”

  “Ten or nothing.”

  “Twenty.”

  “Twenty,” Josune agreed, and pushed the credit through. After which she spent time working on the lock before she went back to searching the studio.

  Nika was glad Josune was along. But then, if she wasn’t, she and Snow would probably be dead. Or she would be dead, and Snow would be back on the Boost.

  She scowled at the genemod machine. One thing they hadn’t bought was disinfectant. “I suppose it’s too much to hope you have some disinfectant in your cupboards.”

  “It’ll be a hundred credits for you.”

  “Ahem,” Josune said.

  He looked at her sideways. “I’m dealing with her, not you.”

  “We’re a team,” Josune said. “Twenty credits, and there’d better be at least a liter.”

  “Half a liter.”

  “Half a liter and you get ten credits.”

  He came out with less than that. Nika paid for it but didn’t quibble.

  “Right,” she told Snow when the machine was clean and washed out yet again. “Do you know how to put a jaw comms in?”

  “You go to a tech shop.”

  And then came to a modder to have the scarring fixed.

  “Here’s what they do.” She showed him how the wires connected to the nerves. The other modder watched over Snow’s shoulder. “Now. Put me in and we’ll see how good it is.”

  “Shouldn’t I go first? I’m your apprentice.”

  “Snow. If you’re not prepared to try something on yourself, don’t try it on anyone else.” She stripped quickly and climbed into the genemod machine.

  Drake said to Snow, “That means if a client came in wanting wings, she’d give herself wings first.”

  Snow sniffed. “She wouldn’t do wings. They were fashionable five years ago. Besides, only rookies do them.”

  The lid closed over her.

  * * *

  • • •

  While Snow’s jaw was being fixed, Nika used her new implant to call up the specs for Brand and Bouwmeester.

  “Minor changes for you,” she told Snow when he came out. “Just the hair and removing the beard.” She indicated the lenses she’d designed from Bouwmeester’s specifications. “They’re yours. If anyone asks, say you’ve been modded recently.” She didn’t mention the finger pads she’d made. Drake was likely to make something of it. The less he knew, the better.

  “By whom?”

  Drake sniggered. “SaStudio, of course.”

  Nika glared at him, opened her mouth to argue, thought better of what she’d been about to say.

  Josune spoke before Nika did. “Wouldn’t pass. Not the right teeth or jaw.” She touched Nika’s arm gently. “Let’s not kill him yet. Maybe later.”

  Nika blinked at her, then laughed. “You’re right. Later would be better. Sorry.”

  “You’re strange, you know that.” Drake turned away to answer a call. “Drake’s modding.”

  Josune leaned over to show her, privately, what she’d found while Nika was under. Alistair Laughton’s office was at Justice Department headquarters, the massive building that took up five hundred meters of prime street across from the huge cultivated park that made up Dartigan Capitol’s central district. The park was famous for its eating houses, all expensive, all in exquisite garden settings, showcasing cuisine from around the galaxy. Jacques would have fitted right in here. Agent Laughton could eat from a different world every day.

  Josune pushed through the coordinates to three areas. She tapped the screen. “Office, seventeenth floor.”

  How likely was the Songyan to be in his office? Genemod machines weren’t small, and unless Laughton’s office was large, it would take up all the spare room. But th
en, the fact that Laughton had an office didn’t bode well anyway. Senior people, in Nika’s experience, could get away with more audacious crimes.

  “It probably won’t be in the office,” Josune said, as if Nika had spoken aloud. She checked to be sure Drake was still on his call and not paying attention to them. “There are two storerooms. Both secure. Both on the ground floor. From what I can gather, all evidence is stored there. Not only that, Laughton has a distinct preference for storing his evidence in this one.” She tapped it.

  “I didn’t know it was so easy to get information about places like that.” Nika looked at Josune’s expression. Maybe not that easy.

  Drake finished his call. He rubbed his hands together, another dry, woody rasp. “I hope you’re finished with my machine by morning. I’ve a client coming in at 9:00 A.M.”

  Plenty of time, given it was early evening. Still, Nika set the machine to do the fastest mod she could. “Cosmetic only for you,” she said to Snow. “Hair and face. Not even the Adam’s apple.”

  It hurt her soul to leave a body so badly underdone, but it only had to work for one night.

  Snow fingered his curls wistfully. “I was getting to like this color.”

  Josune laughed. “Snow. Look at her face. You totally have your priorities wrong. And you, her apprentice.”

  “An extra dose of testosterone never hurt anyone,” Drake said.

  “I’m getting a headache,” Nika said. “You first, Snow.”

  He crawled back into the genemod machine. “I hope you’ve got this hair color in your database, Nika. I might use it again.”

  She missed his original red-gold hair. She had that in the database. “I hope you have it in yours by now,” and closed the lid.

  14

  NIKA RIK TERRI

  There was a building site around the corner from the Justice Department, with a landing area for the heavy deliveries. It was big, it was private, and at this time of night, it was also deserted. Some cities had night building curfews. Dartigan Capitol looked to be one of them. Nika would have liked that on Lesser Sirius.