Against That Time

by Edward McKeown

  My head was spinning like a gas giant’s rings. “So you’re going to go and get pregnant by some Nekoan—”

  “Well, not tonight.”

  “Good.”

  “Likely not from this world either. When that’s over, I would like to leave him behind. I want to raise my kits my way, not following all these archaic traditions. There’s a progressive colony world about six weeks voyage from here where my clan has a substantial position. It would be a good place to find a forward-looking male who’ll do what I want and then let go of me. Likely I’d be gone less than a year. You could use the time to experiment with some human females.

  “That so?” I said from a place out beyond dazed.

  “Provided,” she said, her tail sliding across my back in a playful slap, “you don’t get too involved. I may need to share you with a killer android, but I do not intend to play second place to any real female, male-of-mine.”

  “Right,” I dropped back on the bed.

  “Good. I am so glad that we were able to have this talk, though as usual I had to get you naked and exhausted in order to have a serious discussion of anything. Well, it will make for a long and fun consortship. Just think, your human children and my kits playing on the rug. Holidays surrounded by our own consort group. A lot to look forward to.”

  Satisfied with having arranged the future to her satisfaction, Jaelle lay down and placed her head in its accustomed place on my shoulder. As usual, she slipped into sleep quickly, her breathing and the weight of her head telling me she was well into dreamland.

  I lay watching the moonbeams strike through the virtual slats of the window for an hour. Sleep eventually overtook me and the nightmares returned. I’d been free of them for so long I thought they’d gone. But Candace’s visit had invoked the old Wrik. She’d known the coward, skulking in Kandalor’s corners, eking out a living, betraying some customers to Dusko, to robbery and yes, death.

  Beyond that Wrik lay the original, the one who fell out of his life in the brilliant blue sky over Retief. Firmly and inexorably, my old nemesis dragged me back to face it.

  I’m twisting and jinking in the skies over the jungle farms of my homeworld as my squadron battled the first wave of the Confed Pacification forces. We’re being slaughtered in a hopeless battle. Our obsolescent Wirriways are no match for the latest model Spacefires.

  We are a ritual sacrifice by the graybeards who rule our colony and keep our separatist history; the last of the Boertrekkers. Retief will fall and change will come as it did in Africa centuries ago. The new inevitably forces its way in. But we will die first.

  We, the young, either know no better, or as with many of us, we don’t believe the teachings. But we’ve been sent into battle by our fathers and grandfathers, shoulder-to-shoulder with our brothers and sisters. How can a man hang back? How can he say no?

  The squadron is already half gone. I am climbing with my wingman toward the descending roof of Confed landing barges and fighters. There’s a flash and she is gone. Now it’s just me. The others are far below, fighting. I am alone.

  The moment comes and there is no way to change it. No way to redeem it. I wingover and dive, gathering speed, ignoring the outraged calls in my headset.

  I am diving away. If only I had known then that I could never dive far and fast enough, I’d have taken my chances with my squadron. They became the honored dead, or the champions of the lost cause. Some even worked for the Confederacy, ushering in the new changes, their battle scars giving them legitimacy to call the whole corrupt history to account.

  I lost my name, my world: the whole person that I’d wanted to be before that day, replaced by the broken, fearful, Wrik Trigardt of Kandalor.

  Jaelle and Maauro both knew something had happened, that I had run out on my comrades. Maauro even knew my real name, something I’d told her when I thought I was dying. But she was sworn to secrecy and nothing would prise that from her synthetic lips. Still, I’d never told either of them the full story. It hadn’t been a squadron I’d fled. Retief was a small colony and the militias and wings were all local. I’d run out on my childhood friends, my relatives. There could be no more complete betrayal.

  Since then I’d found a measure of courage and self-respect again. Yet the wound would not close, no certainty returned to me. My courage was always held onto by my fingertips.

  Now Jaelle wanted to talk children— not only hers, but eventually human ones for me? I could not face that, could not imagine telling a child about Retief, could not imagine a life with such a lie, even of omission, underlying it.

  Morning finally came. Jaelle had an appointment at a shipper’s for some equipment for Stardust, so breakfast was quick. I was used to covering my lapses in mood and Jaelle, perceptive as she was, was still an alien and didn’t pick up on it. She kissed me and ran out to the aircar.

  I killed some time reviewing the material Candace left us, then working on some bureaucratic junk for maintaining my pilot license. Without Jaelle there, cooking lunch lacked any appeal so I hit a nearby diner. After that it was back to work, checking Stardust’s maintenance records. The ship was primarily my responsibility, but I could not focus. After a few hours I finally slammed a fist on the desktop and realized that I had to get out of our apartment, which now had a prison feel to it.

  In something like the panic of an escaping prisoner, I changed into a tracksuit before the irony of my trying to outrun my depression struck me. The run helped anyway. Star City was a beautiful backdrop for it. Overhead, ships and aircraft slugged it out with gravity. It lifted my spirits some. Spaceports always seemed like places of possibility to me. I jogged on past floods of commuters and office workers from every species of the Confederacy. But they too were backdrop, mere faceless strangers. The guard at the side gate knew me and waved as I jogged through the scanners, but quickly returned to his screen when I didn’t stop to shoot the breeze.

  I could see Stardust’s dark-green and gold hull and next to it the combination office tower and hanger that was our new home. My footfalls sounded softly on the material of the field as I dodged around carts and port vehicles scurrying on their endless errands.

  I wanted to see Maauro. Just being around her eased most of the trouble in me. I slowed as I neared the tower and considered the why of it. Why was I running to Maauro? Why hadn’t I talked to Jaelle about the nightmares, about my doubts of the future? About my doubts of having other lovers in our consortship? Was it just because Maauro was so strong that I turned to her? I couldn’t fail Maauro because in a very real sense she didn’t need me. Was that it?

  When are you going to stand on your own two feet, Wrik? When are you going to be a contributing partner to all this?

  The door AI recognized me and let me in. Instead of Maauro, I found Dusko, frowning at a screen. Pungent fragments of his lunch were scattered on plates nearby.

  We usually exchanged grunts when we took notice of each other at all, but today he waved me over. “What do you make of this?” He gestured at the screen. On it glowed a message, but one devoid of audio, visual or any of the usual originating data.

  Come to Dock 139 Section A. Look for a Morok wearing a sub-service uniform in blue and black. Information you need about humans on a Ribisan world for a reasonable price. Use code access 43718 Ceta.

  “Interesting,” I said. “Maybe Telberd put the word around?”

  “Possibly. It would be stupid, but our young hoodlum is not as clever as he believes he is.”

  “I should check it out.” The message seemed like a godsend to me, an excuse to flee my doubts and fears and do something.

  Dusko stared at me as if I was a dull child. “It would be better to wait for Maauro.”

  “I can handle myself,” I said brusquely. “I survived for years on my own.”

  “Hardly well,” he replied, rising from the chair.

  “Thanks to you,�
� I snapped, “and others like you.” I shouldered past him and slapped my hand on the arms cabinet. The door slid open and I pulled out a short-barreled stunner and two recharges.

  “At least call Jaelle,” Dusko demanded. I noticed that he did not offer to back me up.

  “She went to Felistown on that trade job. She’s five hours south of here by now. And what would I tell her? Some submarine jockey calls in with a tale about seeing humans on a Ribisan station? Where would a submariner learn that? It doesn’t mean much. Odds are good all I’ll end up doing is paying a few credits to hear a tale repeated from an old spacer who got drunk at the docks.”

  “Why would they know we have an interest in Ribisans?” Dusko demanded, crossing his multi-jointed arms over his chest.

  “Like I said, probably from Telberd, hunting for information on his sister. We weren’t the only, or the first people he contacted.”

  “I still think you should wait for Maauro or Jaelle.”

  “I can’t go scampering to Jaelle or Maauro for every damn thing. I’m a partner in this agency, not a ward.”

  Dusko stared at me in incomprehension then shook his head. “Odd that Maauro is out of contact for so long.”

  I shrugged. “It’s happened before. There are a lot of dead spots with all the embassies, corporate HQs and security offices causing dropouts in communications. I’m not going to use the emergency channel for something like this. I’ll call in if there’s trouble.”

  As I headed for the door, I heard Dusko mutter something in his native tongue. I doubted it was complimentary.

  I hopped a robocab at the front of the building. It dropped me off at the docks an hour later as the sun drifted westward. The air was turning crisp as fall approached. Around me the dock area was slipping into evening mode. The docks never quite shut down; they just switched to a slower pace. Ships lay by the piers, from huge bulk-carriers to cargo subs bound for the underwater colonies, to local skimmers. A passenger ship, lit like a holiday tree, glittered in the distance, ready to take those who loved the sea out into its embrace. The smell of the ocean came in with the breeze. I took in deep lungfuls, my mood lifting some. I strolled up past departing workers of various species heading for the guard station.

  “May I help you?” came the well-modulated voice of the AI station.

  “Code access 43718 Ceta.”

  “Admitted,” the speaker replied. The gate slid open. Beyond lay a series of long modern warehouses. A security bot passed me without pausing; the main AI would have registered me with all systems in the complex. Star Central was too wealthy and sophisticated a world to have too many living workers in something as basic as warehousing.

  I wandered about, checking some signs and found my way to the warehouse my contact specified. It was almost all the way down to the dock, an older building of gray, stressed-concrete with a roll-back roof to allow the massive dockside cranes to drop containers in.

  I looked around for the Morok I was supposed to meet, but saw no sign, so I went into the building. The security scanner bleeped at me as I passed it. Inside the warehouse was full of shipping containers, ten-high in places. I walked around, my hand inside my jacket, resting on the butt of the stunner. The only movement I saw was some cleaning robots slowly working on the rough flooring. I looked up. One panel of the rollback roof was back, admitting slanting yellow beams of light into the dim interior.

  I sighed. This was turning into a wild goose chase. The wisdom of my solo mission was also looking more and more questionable. Truth was I was feeling inadequate. Maauro really didn’t need me. Jaelle had been a successful merchant before she met us. All I brought to Lost Planet was my piloting. Even Dusko with his criminal connections was more useful than I was. But I wasn’t going to be carried in the group like some useless appendage. I needed to contribute. I needed to provide something. My footfalls echoed off the walls as I hunted the Morok.

  I return to the office late in day. I’ve been conducting some surveillance of the Ribisan legation then refueling myself from a concealed powertap I have created near a local fusion plant. I like to stay in top shape.

  Dusko greets me at the door. “Where have you been?” This is unusual; he is normally circumspect with me. Something is wrong.

  “I have been engaged in diagnostics and self-maintenance.”

  “I’ve been messaging you for hours!”

  I frown in incomprehension. “I received no messages.”

  Dusko slams a first into his palm. “I was right. We’ve been hacked. Our communications interrupted.”

  Now I am surprised, I’d set the program safeguards myself. I thought them proof against anything the Confederacy could do. But why would Candace want to interfere with our communications?

  “Listen,” Dusko added. “There was a message sent here today for you and Wrik, offering us information about this new commission we’ve accepted. It promised a meeting down at the docks.” His hands fly over the message board and I read the data in an instant.

  “A trap,” I say, “given that we have been hacked.” While Dusko has been retrieving the message, I extended my senses into our computer net. I detect an infiltrating virus of immense complexity and subtlety. It reacts to me as soon as I touch it and it self-erases. I am alarmed and puzzled. This wasn’t Infester or Creator tech. Nor did I believe it Confederate work.

  “Wrik decided not to wait for you. I told him not to go but the damn fool—”

  Dusko is talking to empty space. I accelerate to my best ground speed. The door will open too slowly so I simply dive through it. I am messaging Wrik as I go, but the hack must be affecting his com. I cannot reach him. I leap into an aircar, hacking into the traffic control system in a preprepared intrusion that allows me use the police altitudes. I should be mistaken for an unmarked police car if anyone considers me at all. I have prepared for all eventualities other than Wrik’s sudden attack of stupidity. Why would he go on a possibly dangerous venture without me? This smacks of his occasional self-destructiveness back on Kandalor. What have I missed?

  I press the aircar to its max and lament its deficiencies in speed and agility. Even with the best I can do with the traffic control, I can only move so fast without creating situations impossible to control.

  Wrik, you and I are going to have a long conversation when this is over. Assuming we both survive.

  Chapter Five

  I frowned as I came around yet another stack of containers. No Morok submariner. This was beginning to smell bad and it wasn’t anything rotting by the piers. The instincts that had kept me alive on Kandalor were now jangling furiously. Truth was they’d been doing it since I arrived and I, having grown too used to being backed up by Maauro, had been ignoring them. I jumped for the edge of one container and pulled myself off the floor.

  Something slammed the container below me and I nearly fell off. Another heave got me up and I scrambled forward, got to my feet and ran bent double. A laser crisped the air over me. I could feel the heat through my jacket despite the armored panels Maauro had made for it. I went down in a roll, came back up and cut in the other direction, leaping up a series of stacked containers until I was ten meters off the ground. Only then did I have leisure to draw my stunner. I lay panting as I searched the dim quarters of the warehouse.

  Not the only thing around here that’s dim, I thought. I came here alone, ignored all the warning signs and now I’m cut off in a warehouse with a heavily armed enemy. I moved back from the edge, trying to get higher still and pulled out my com. As I expected, there was no signal. Jammed. Our enemy had planned well.

  I heard a sound below me, not the tread of feet, though it had that rhythm, but something more mechanical. I pocketed the com, dialed the stunner up to max, then leapt to another container stack. Not a second too soon. The stack I’d left tipped forward with a tremendous crash to lean against an outer wall. What the hell was after me? I s
crambled upward, trying to put vertical distance between us at least.

  Through a gap revealed by the toppling containers I saw something. A large figure in an armored suit, over two meters tall—not a military job— more like a loader adapted for weapons. The occupant stomped forward with a whine of servos, evidently searching for a crushed me among the containers.

  I looked for a way out. We were in the back of the warehouse, far from the front entrance or the open roof. I’d have to get past my steel nemesis. I fired the stunner. It buzzed in my hand but I might have hummed at my assailant for all the good it did. The suit leaned back, looking up. Both arms came up and I rolled backward away from the ledge as a storm of laser and accelerated metal ate up the edge of the container. I ran further back, hearing the machine thirty meters below stomping after me. At least speed and agility were on my side.

  I saw the gap ahead of me almost too late. With a last burst of speed I jumped the gap, but lost my stunner as I frantically clawed for a grip to keep from sliding off the canted container top. The weapon tumbled out of sight and I ran on.

  With a little lead, I opted to change directions and slow down. My armored friend didn’t seem interested in coming up after me. I wondered what he was. From the size I thought he might be one of the ursine Okaran, but one of them would have come up after me, disdaining hiding in something so clumsy. Either my opponent was short on nerve, or perhaps some disability kept him running around like a tank chasing an enemy soldier through a village.

  I moved as silently as I could manage. The thing probably had audio sensors and infrared. Positioned below me, he could not use his infrared through the containers. I had to hope the vast echoing space of the warehouse made audio problematic.

  I spotted a metal buckle on a bit of strapping a worker had left behind. I whirled it over my head and flung it as far away as I could. It landed with a clatter on a container. Instantly a laser slashed up at that container and then the tower of them rocked as the powered suit tried to shake its imagined prey off.