Chilling Effect_A Novel

by Valerie Valdes

  She knocked. Nothing. She knocked again.

  “Maybe she’s out,” Pink said. “You think people just wait around in case you want to see them?”

  Eva shrugged, then banged on the door more loudly, a booming staccato rhythm. On the third knock, an unseen intercom crackled.

  “What do you require?” said a trembling voice.

  “Station security,” Eva said. “We need to speak to Pollea Tremonis san Jaigodaris.”

  “You are not in uniform.”

  “Undercover, ma’am. Please open the door or we’ll use our priority access key to force entry.”

  Eva had no access key, but she assumed they existed. Cops on these kinds of stations gave zero craps about things like privacy rights and the violation thereof. When there was no immediate response, she assumed the worst and tensed up, leaning on the balls of her feet.

  As soon as the door began to iris open, she dodged to the side of the doorway, expecting to get jumped. Instead, a quennian in a blue coverall poked her head out, staring at Eva. She smelled confused, suspicious, and enough like Vakar that it hurt.

  Eva grabbed her by the arms and pulled her into the hallway, depositing the woman next to her and then glancing into the room. It looked perfectly ordinary, and empty of other people.

  “Pollea Tremonis san Jaigodaris?” she asked.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Her coloring was similar to Vakar’s, too, eyes almost the same blue. Eva froze for a moment, lost in memory, then shook it off.

  “Has anyone contacted you within the last hour?” Eva asked.

  “I was told a station plumber would come to fix a leak in the wall tank. He should arrive any minute.”

  Probably The Fridge. Had she really beaten them here? She felt positively giddy. Unless this wasn’t really Vakar’s sister . . . But no, she smelled like him. Unless that was just Eva projecting.

  Paranoia was a hell of a drug.

  “We don’t have much time,” Eva said. “You’re in danger, and we’re here to keep you safe. Pink, search the room.”

  ((For what?)) Pink pinged at her.

  ((Anything weird.)) Eva pinged. ((Struggle signs.))

  “You cannot simply force entry and ransack my quarters!” Pollea exclaimed.

  “Keep it down,” Eva said. “We can talk inside. The plumber isn’t a plumber, and more people may be on the way to kidnap you.”

  That got Pollea’s attention. She stiffened, palps twitching. Eva gestured at the doorway and Pollea entered, followed by Eva, who closed the door.

  Pollea stood in the living room while Pink gently poked around in the bedroom. There was also a bathroom and a kitchen. Cozy. Standard decor in the putty color of recycled materials, but with vibrant pops of purple, green and blue in a few places. Eva stepped over to examine the nearest one.

  “Who are you and what do you want from me?” Pollea asked.

  “I need information. It’s about your brother.” The colors turned out to be arrangements of plantlike crystals, like Vakar used to grow. The pieces fused together seamlessly, some of them small clusters of saltlike cubes, others larger hexagonal pieces that tapered to a point. They sat in delicate glass containers with necks no wider than her pinkie, and she remembered how carefully he would place the seeds inside, coaxing them to splice and nurturing them with different blends of chemicals only he understood.

  “Has something happened? He was missing for so long, and then—” Pollea shut up, as if realizing she was about to say something she shouldn’t.

  Eva leaned in closer to examine one of the purple crystals. A wisp of smell drifted up and she stumbled back a step.

  “Where did you get that?” she asked.

  “A gift from my brother.” Pollea smelled slightly less anxious. “His little hobby, growing these. Well, not anymore, I suppose, since he left that ship he was on.”

  It smelled like Vakar when he was melancholy, with an undercurrent of . . . loneliness? Yearning?

  “All clear,” Pink said, leaning against a kitchen cabinet. “You realize you can’t just leave her here, right?”

  Pollea stared at Eva, smelling concerned.

  “Right,” Eva replied hoarsely. “If anything happened to her, Vakar would never forgive me.”

  “Who did you say you were?” Pollea asked.

  “I didn’t,” Eva said. “I was—” She swallowed. What was she? She thought she knew, but so many things had changed.

  “I was captain on the ship Vakar left,” she said finally. “La Sirena Negra. We were close, and things went bad—nothing to do with him. But I need to find him.” I want to find him, she didn’t say. I miss him so much it hurts to breathe in here.

  “He never said where he was, not since he . . . He said it was easier that way. Is he in danger? His last message was infuriatingly cryptic, and—”

  “So he has contacted you,” Eva said. “There has to be something, some way to trace the messages back to their point of origin.” She stepped over to the cluster of blue crystals and smelled the opening. Like cut grass. Bashful, shy. Eva’s eyes watered. She’d come too far, gotten too close for this to be another dead end.

  “There are some parts that are memlocked,” Pollea said. “But they aren’t for me. He said it was probably a waste of time, but he always included them just in case. Something to do with the fish.” Her palps twitched.

  “Fish?” Pink asked.

  Pollea gestured, and a panel in the wall slid back.

  There, floating peaceful as you please, were Eva’s missing fish.

  “Alabao,” Eva whispered. How had that sly bastard . . . Never mind. “Those are my fish. Give me the last message. Please.”

  She opened her commlink to receive and Pollea, after a moment’s hesitation, sent it over.

  It was audio only, but her chest tightened at the sound of Vakar’s voice. It had been a few cycles since she’d last seen him, from her perspective, but everyone else’s time difference had tainted her perceptions, making it feel much longer. Or so she told herself.

  “Pol, hope you’re well,” he began. “Apologies for the delay between communications. Work has been challenging, as usual. Give my love to everyone, and pray for me. I believe I’ll need it this time.” The recording stopped there.

  Eva let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. The memlock loomed in her mind like the wall of a safe, waiting for the code to unlock it.

  Only for me, she thought. She let the memlock rifle through her mind, looking for the right key. Memories rose unbidden: the taste of his face. Showing him how to make real coffee. Crawling into the guts of the ship to tell him something instead of just pinging him. She thought she might burst before the thing was through with her.

  The two of them grappling in the cargo hold. Pastelitos. Another kind of grappling.

  The smell of licorice.

  Another recording began to play. “Eva, if you are hearing this . . . Many things have happened since you were taken, but we can share stories later, with any luck. I assume this means you finally came looking for me for . . . whatever reason.” He paused.

  “Finally”? she thought. “For whatever reason”? The hell did that mean?

  “I am involved in some work I think you might be interested in. It is a breach of security to tell you this, so please be discreet. I am not sure how long I will be at the attached coordinates. Not very long, if all goes well. If not . . .” He paused again, and she swallowed a scream. “If not, I would consider it a personal favor if you could return my remains to my family. Assuming anything is left. Otherwise, please tell them I am sorry. Again.”

  Eva stood still as a post until Pink put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Well?” Pink asked.

  “When did you get this message?” Eva asked.

  “Last cycle,” Pollea said.

  “Last cycle,” Eva repeated. “If he got himself killed, I’m going to kill him.”

  Pink grinned. “And if not?”

 
; “I’m going to get my ship back, and then I’m going to kill him.”

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Answer it,” Eva said.

  Pollea, who had been as still as Eva, jerked her head sideways. “Yes, who is it?”

  The intercom beeped. “Plumber. Here to fix the leak.”

  “Good.” Eva cracked her knuckles. “I want to have a word with him.”

  “You promised, no fighting.” Pink glared at her.

  “You think this is going to be a real fight? Please. Don’t make me laugh. You told me not to laugh, either.”

  The door opened, and Eva pulled the man inside.

  “How was I supposed to know he was an actual plumber?” Eva said, opening the cargo bay doors.

  “You could have asked before you got him in that sleeper hold,” Pink said.

  “Oh sure. ‘Hi, are you a plumber or a secret ag—’” Eva froze, staring at the strange tableau before her.

  Four people lay motionless on the floor of the cargo bay. On one side, two humans were buried in small, furry creatures that purred in unison like a giant living engine. On the other, a human and a kloshian were covered in smoking burn marks that smelled like lechón and crema catalana, respectively. A horde of robots stood guard over them.

  Pollea stepped closer to Eva, luggage clutched to her chest like a shield. “Is that your crew?”

  “I don’t know if I’d call them crew, per se, but they certainly seem to be responsible for— Oh, you mean the other guys. Nope, not mine. They’re the reason we came to get you.” Eva approached the cats, whose expressions were a touch more smug than usual. “Pink, shall we take out the trash?”

  “I can help,” Sue said, climbing down the rear access ladder. “You’re supposed to be resting, remember?”

  Eva scrunched her lips into a frown. “I can rest on our way to Vela Perileos. Min, set a course. You.” She pointed at Pollea. “Follow me.”

  She gave Vakar’s sister the grand tour of El Cucullo, which wasn’t long, and set her up with a bunk. It occurred to Eva that this was a potentially scary situation, being spirited away from home by a stranger to go rushing into unknown danger. She tried to think of something comforting to tell the woman.

  “We probably won’t die,” she said.

  “Excuse me?” Pollea stared at her, blinking her inner eyelids rapidly.

  “I mean, you probably won’t die,” she amended. “And I haven’t died yet, so my track record is pretty good. And I’ve saved Vakar’s life a few times, so I figure I can do it again if I have to.”

  “You are attempting to give me courage, Captain?”

  Or me, Eva thought. For all she knew, she was flying into a hot mess to pick up a cold corpse.

  “You hungry?” she asked instead. “Sue is pretty good at making rations taste almost like food.”

  Pollea cocked her head to one side, a gesture so like Vakar’s that Eva’s breath snagged. “I am confused, and worried, and brimming with questions about all this. Hungry, I am not.”

  The ship’s engines whined to life, and the bottom dropped out of Eva’s stomach as El Cucullo took off. She leaned one hand against a bulkhead, wincing at the way her outstretched arm pulled at her bandages.

  “You’re as straightforward as your brother,” she said quietly. “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything.”

  “That narrows it down.” She sank to the floor, resting her forehead on one hand. Where to even start? The Fridge? Cryo? Garilia?

  “Once upon a time,” Eva said, “a really cocky idiot thought it would be funny to lick a quennian.”

  Chapter 21

  It’s Dangerous to Go Alone

  Vela Perileos didn’t get a lot of attention because it was hours from the nearest Gate, its resources had been strip-mined long ago, and its planets bore the scars of some ancient battles that frankly gave most people the heebie-jeebies. Periodically, archaeology professors would trek out to a moon or something and spend a few weeks digging around in the dirt, find tiny pieces of stuff, write books about how the stuff was probably an ancient hair dryer, and force their students to buy the books so they could eat off the royalties.

  It was, for all practical purposes, a dead system, and Eva had the bad feeling she was about to kick over some headstones.

  Vakar’s coordinates put him on Cavus, the fourth planet from the star. The place was technically under quennian jurisdiction, and they’d designated it as off-limits. Mysterious. That usually meant military shenanigans, or something really embarrassing to someone with enough power to build walls of bullshit.

  El Cucullo touched down on a surface pockmarked with impact craters, its atmosphere thin as a whistle. Off to one side was a gentle slope into a valley dotted with squat, scrubby plants, while in all other directions the ground was level and bare as rock. Two other ships waited nearby: a stocky little Javelin-class beauty with no identifying marks, and a quennian vessel called Persistent Ingenuity, the dimness of its ruby hull suggesting it was empty, inert. Not a good sign.

  Also not a good sign: Eva tried to ping Vakar, but there was no reply. He could be outside of ping range, or, well. Way outside of ping range, permanently.

  “I want to come with you,” Pollea said.

  “Nope.” Eva checked her weapons, and her backup weapons, and her emergency backup weapons. Then she scowled because she had to pee.

  “He is my brother. I cannot simply sit here while you—”

  “Listen, I can give you a long lecture about how bringing you would be the”—Eva counted on her fingers—“third-stupidest thing I’ve ever done. But I won’t. I know how you feel, and I respect it, and I wouldn’t take you along if you paid me double the bounty I used to have on my head.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I won’t.” Eva stared up at Pollea, gritting her teeth. Because, you dumbass, if anything happened to you, I could never speak to Vakar again as long as I lived. “Just sit tight. Help Sue with repairs if you need something useful to do. Pink, you’re co-captain, so—”

  “I’m coming with you?” Pink checked the sidearm she carried when sniping wasn’t practical. “And don’t even try to argue. Vakar is my friend, too, and you’re still recovering.”

  Eva hesitated. “I don’t want you to get hurt is all.”

  “Then you should have left me on Sceilara.” Pink activated her isohelmet and gestured at the door. “After you.”

  Eva nodded, then activated her own helmet and slipped into the airlock before Pollea could renew her protests. Her suit’s sensors told her the air was chilly in the pale blue light of dawn, and the gravity was a little lower than Earth standard, so she and Pink took big bouncy steps toward the quennian ship.

  The door had a piezoelectric interface, which she’d never gotten the knack of hacking. After a few failed tries, she pinged Min to do it for her.

  ((Sure, Cap.)) A few moments later the rear hatch slid open, and she and Pink crawled inside.

  The interior was a typical mishmash of retrofitted universal parts and carefully shaped crystalline structures of varying colors, mostly red. She activated the console to see whether there were any logs to give her a hint as to what the ship was here for.

  “Access restricted,” she said.

  “Big surprise,” Pink replied. “At least we haven’t triggered any nasty security traps.”

  “Not yet,” Eva replied. “Let’s keep looking around.”

  Crew quarters, feeding-tube stations, lounge area. Normal stuff. Boring. And more importantly, there was no sign of Vakar.

  “Smells like the crew has been gone for a while,” Eva said. “You see anything interesting with your magic eye?”

  “Not especially,” Pink said, then paused. “Well, that’s something. I’m getting strange business from behind that door.”

  Eva checked the door. Locked. “What kind of strange?” she asked.

  “Like a quennian, but not. It’s hard to describe.”

 
; “Be bold, be bold, but not too bold,” Eva muttered to herself, and pinged Min again. To her surprise, this took longer to hack, causing Min to use a word Eva hadn’t realized she knew. But the door finally slid open, and Eva gestured at Pink to wait while she looked around.

  Pink gave her the finger, but she didn’t move except to draw her weapon.

  Inside was a bunch of random equipment, the kind of stuff you’d see on a mining operation, and a lot of gaps where Eva imagined other equipment had been stored. But suspended in a glass tank at the end of the room was a sleeping quennian.

  She stepped over to it, wondering why they’d leave one of their own crew behind and go . . . wherever the rest of them had gone. There were no visible injuries, but the quennian’s scales were strangely dark, and the closer she got, the more the rest of the body seemed like a blurred mess. Like a painting that looked okay from far away, but up close—

  The quennian’s head swiveled toward her, and it emitted a shriek that jolted through her body like lightning, stunning her so that she froze in place, unable to do more than whimper. As she watched, it unfolded its limbs and placed a mangled hand against the glass, palps writhing unnaturally. Its fingers rippled, the edges feathering like ink on wet paper, and she wondered what the hell the thing was, because it definitely wasn’t a quennian.

  Not only was she frozen, but the shrieking was giving her a bitch of a headache. Her heart, being inorganic, didn’t falter in its beatless blood-pumping habit, which made it marginally easier to calm herself down. With a thought, she set her helmet to block out exterior sounds, and slowly, like she was uncramping every muscle one by one, she regained control over her own body.

  The creature didn’t move, just kept staring at her even though it didn’t actually have eyes. It was like an artist’s quick rendering of a quennian, all outlines and no definition. And thankfully, it seemed to be trapped inside the container.

  Eva edged backward, maintaining eye contact with the creature until she was out of the room. She closed the door and locked it up again, forcing slow breaths in and out of her nose. Pink was just as frozen as she had been, eyes wide in terror, mouth half-open as if she were about to scream.