Jailmates

by Lesli Richardson

  That’s why I’m a little surprised to have a message from an official Maxim Colonies rep waiting for me when I check my personal com that evening after chow and showering and settling in my bunk behind my privacy screen.

  I’d been planning to revisit the ad and look into what I might have to do to learn more about Mohrn.

  Turns out I don’t have to.

  My apologies for the intrusion. Our system alerted me to you saving the following ad in your account. It is a time-sensitive posting, so if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me personally. I’ll be happy to answer any of your questions regarding the position.

  Warm regards,

  Dr. Mafer H’looder

  Followed by a string of letters indicating degrees or something, and all their contact info. The ad’s code was referenced, too.

  I don’t know if that’s common practice, for them to contact people who save ads. I guess it makes sense since it is a time-sensitive posting.

  I think it’s also a little creepy, in a way.

  Clicking on the link in H’looder’s signature line leads me to their MC personnel page, and…

  Holy frak.

  No wonder they have a string of letters after their name. They’ve achieved advanced degrees in several medical specialties, including biomedical research, reproductive specialties, oncology, environmental analysis, and a bunch more.

  It turns out H’looder is a male Veraci, a semi-humanoid species I’ve dealt with before. Brilliant compared to humans as a general rule, but as squishy as a sponge. Literally. Definitely not a species that likes to get into combat situations. You’ll never find them storming some beachhead with a bunch of grunts. If they are ever out in the field, they usually wear fully powered bio mech armor that protects them completely from the environment, and from dangers like people wanting to shake hands with them, or booping them on the nose.

  They prefer to conquer through intellectual property exchanges and mutually beneficial treaties that help advance research and technology.

  It was a tactic working well for them so far, it would seem.

  I don’t know where H’looder is based out of, so I compose a short reply.

  Dear Dr. H’looder,

  I am curious but not prepared to sign a contract at this time. I’m still in the military for another couple of days, and then I need to travel home to Axind 5 to visit my mom and sister. I would like more information on what duties, exactly, the posting would detail, what the “biological mandate” means, all of that.

  I would also appreciate your discretion because I don’t know if I’m even going to say yes or not.

  Thanks,

  Simon Quigley

  I include my service number, because no doubt Maxim Colonies has access to the military databases. He can learn everything about me that’s available in my jacket, including my health history. If I’m not a good fit, he can save us both some time. It will also likely give the guy an idea where I’m coming from. I certainly don’t want him getting his hopes up, or hers.

  Mohrn.

  Except when I take another look at her picture, I swear I can nearly hear her thoughts.

  A little spooky, in a good way, and yet I’m not ready to walk away.

  Not yet.

  I look closer at the ad and realize it was only posted a couple of days before I saw it, so it’s not like it’s been up for long.

  Okay, that eases one of my concerns but it also revs a tiny motor inside my brain that wants me to say yes to this before they find someone else to do it and I’ve basically missed out on a chance to earn that kind of money just because I was overly cautious.

  I’m not exactly a player when it comes to romance. I’ve never claimed to be. I’m pretty damned pragmatic, honestly. Losing Dad as young as I did, and being the older brother, I learned that sometimes choices have to be made for the greater good.

  Instead of going out with friends or girlfriends once I was a teenager, if I wasn’t focused on my lessons in primary, then I was out working whatever part-time jobs I could scrape up at my age to help buy groceries. Hell, sometimes I even traded food for working.

  I’m only twenty-three. If I agree to this, I’ll be twenty-eight when I finish, and financially set for the rest of my adult life, with the freedom to help Mom and Helleia get ahead.

  It’s only five years. If Mohrn’s monthly biological mandate means I have to fuck her once a month, that’s sixty times, max, right? And there was something about the seeker possibly ending the contract early. Still a win, in my book.

  Hell, I don’t think I’ve masturbated that many times in the past five years, to be honest. Nearly dying might rev some guys’ engines, but it’s had a chilling effect on my libido. Not to mention I’m always fricking cold in goddamned space. I always have the heater in my bunk cranked up high, and that’s the main reason I normally keep my privacy screen pulled—because I’m fricking cold. Keeping it pulled means I can wear less clothes and keep the damn heat in. On duty, I’m usually wearing two thermo skins under my uniform, and a jacket and gloves on top of it.

  On occasion, when I know I have to be out in the mech bay for long periods of time when the launch hatch will be open and the only thing separating us from the cold of space is the launch force field, I’ll add a third thermo skin, extra socks, and that still leaves me chilly, even though most guys are using none or one and sweating their balls off.

  Some of the guys make fun of me, but I can’t help it. Mom said Dad was the same way. Some people just are. I learned early in basic to shut up about it and deal with it however I had to. With mech-techs, the brass don’t care what you wear under your uniform as long as you present according to regs on the outside.

  One of the latest innovations Maxim Colonies has developed is thermo bionanotech that can alter the body in several ways. One of them being the ability to adjust to living in different regions than is usually comfortable. Like enabling someone used to frosty climes being able to adapt to desert realms, and vice versa. Also, it includes the ability to comfortably exist in any clime within a reasonable temperature range for that particular species, because the bionanotech automatically adjusts the body’s systems to take the outside temps into account.

  I’d considered joining one of their test groups last year, because the military would’ve given me a free month’s leave and wages for doing it. Then I decided I didn’t want to be a test bunny. Now I’m wishing I had, because to get the treatment means paying out of pocket for it and it’s…spendy. If I was staying in the military another stint I could get a massively reduced price on it, not even half a month’s salary, which they’d take out in weekly payments.

  But I’m not staying in for another five years.

  If I’m going to spend five years contractually tethered to a person or a place or a job, it’ll be a situation where I don’t need to worry about getting my ass shot off, with minimal risk to my life and safety in the process, and where I’m being more than adequately compensated for it.

  I finally force myself to close the ad and start scanning the job postings Stacks talked about. I’ve never had any problem putting in a full day’s work, hard work. There are literally thousands of job listings for safe, well-paying gigs, but many of them are also located in the asscrack of the known local cluster of galaxies, meaning more time away from Mom and Helleia, because they’re too far away from Axind 5 for easy visits.

  They’re also open-ended contracts. Minimum service periods to guarantee different bonus levels, and the ability to say “fuck this shit” and terminate my employment contract at any time, if I want.

  That’s more like it.

  I’ve saved a couple of those ads when my bunk com lights up, indicating an incoming call from the bridge.

  I hit the button. “Quigley.”

  “You’ve got an official video com link-up waiting. Com Bay 12.”

  “What? Who is it?”

  But the call has already terminated.

&nb
sp; Well, shit.

  This couldn’t be good. I never receive com link-ups.

  Fear fills me as I race to yank the privacy screen open and clamber out of my bunk without stumbling over my own feet. For security, our personal coms can’t receive video or audio link-ups while on board. Usually, private video com link-ups are reserved for official business, important business, and scheduled next-of-kin communication times with family.

  Or notifications that someone close to you has died.

  Scheduled next-of-kin communications are pricey, especially if you’re not close enough to a hyper-com portal to have them be nearly real-time, so I don’t do them.

  I’m nearly in a panic by the time I reach the small booth where I’ll receive my link-up. Like I said, I have an under-used creative side, and my mind has already envisioned dozens of horrific scenarios where some wonk is about to inform me I no longer have a family.

  Fingers trembling, I touch my thumb to the keypad and impatiently wait for it to go green so I can open the door and step inside. I’ve only used these a couple of times through the years, so it takes me a moment to orient myself to the controls. Once I find the touch pad and put my thumb to it to accept the link-up, the controls light up.

  Without even reading the incoming ID data card to see who it is or why they’re contacting me, I punch the green connect button on the screen and wait for it to go through.

  I blink as the screen on my end lights up and I am faced with a blandly smiling and slightly familiar-looking male Veraci.

  “Ah, hello there, Sgt. Quigley. Terribly sorry to intrude on you like this, but—”

  “Who are you? What is this about?” My fear rapidly spins into confusion.

  There is very little delay, so either they have a hyper-com setup, with the signal bouncing through jump portals, or they are physically relatively close to me in the universe.

  “I’m so sorry. I thought I sent an ID card when I requested the link-up. My name is Dr. Mafer H’looder, with the Maxim Colonies add-pad division—”

  “The…what?”

  “Terribly sorry. A-D-P-D. Assisted Domestic Partnership Division. I’d like to talk with you about—”

  “Wait. This is about the ad?”

  “Yes. I received your reply and thought it best to address your questions directly.”

  My pulse starts to return to a normal rhythm as the last of my fear dissipates. “You scared the crap out of me! I thought you were calling to tell me something horrible had happened to my mom or my sister.”

  What passes for a brow arches. “Oh, my goodness. I’m so terribly sorry, Sgt. Quigley. No wonder you look scared.”

  He’s apologizing an awful lot, even for a Veraci. Apologetic tends to be their default mode to hopefully deflect anger and keep from getting hit. Or poked.

  I finally open the fold-out seat built into the booth’s wall and lower myself onto it. “You’re going through all this trouble for the ad? You realize that makes me very suspicious, right?”

  “I’m so sorry, that is perfectly understandable, Sergeant. I took the liberty of perusing your military records, since you helpfully provided me with your service number. I believe you’d be an excellently suited applicant for this position. Since we are working under a very limited timeframe, I felt it best to expedite the communications as much as possible.”

  That tells me…literally nothing. My bullshit meter is humming. “What is going on? Why this urgent rush to get me to sign up? Especially when I haven’t even been officially discharged yet.”

  “You see, when you contacted us, I pulled your biological samples on file that the military took. Using those, I ran a few quick tests. We have had others inquire about the ad, but because of the biological mandate, and the rather compressed timeframe, there are a few things that make you an ideal candidate. Because of the time-sensitive nature of this we only ran the advertisement in this local cluster, not coalition-wide.”

  That still tells me almost nothing but at least it helps ease one of my fears, that I was the one and only candidate and they were jumping on me out of desperation. “I know you’re in a rush to sign me up but I still want to go home and visit my mom and sister first.”

  “Rightfully so, Sergeant. My ship can ether-jump you home to Axind 5 in approximately seventy-two standard hours, to give you the maximum time to visit with them before we depart for Pfahrn and start the process.”

  “Ether-jump me home? I can’t afford that!” My free ticket won’t cover that, either. Portal jumps, yes, but not an ether-jump. Tickets on those fucking ships are damned pricey.

  “Oh, that would be complimentary through Maxim Colonies.”

  Wow. “What process?” I ask. “You’ve told me nothing. I want to know what I’m getting into before I agree to anything. For starters, this biological mandate. Is it having sex once a month or something? And why all the rush? How do I even know I’ll get along with Mohrn? Or that she’ll like me? If I’m going to be living with her for five years—”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t be residing with the client,” Dr. H’looder says. “Upon completion of the, eh, initial contractual arrangements that must be taken care of, and the necessary biological adjustments, Mohrn will be transported to a regional penal facility that resides on a satellite station orbiting Pfahrn to serve out their five-year prison sentence. You’d only be seeing them once a month, approximately, for conjugal visits.”

  Chapter Four

  I lie in my bunk and stare up at what is the bottom of Stacks’ bunk area. Alone and enclosed in my safe, warm space, I can better contemplate the situation.

  Mohrn isn’t a murderer. Since I haven’t signed the contract yet, H’looder couldn’t give me all the details because of privacy issues. But it sounds like more a case of unintended negligent manslaughter. Some sort of vehicle accident resulting in a death. It was a legitimate accident. Had it happened nearly anywhere else she likely wouldn’t have faced any punishment except perhaps a fine.

  But Pfahrn laws aren’t like that. They allow for a victim—or their family—to demand a commiserate punishment, payment, or other suitable compensation. Usually money or jail time, or both. Sometimes a term of service to the wronged party, or surrender of personal assets.

  They have a system of judicial magistrate panels to hear disputes that can’t be settled by regional magistrates. Lying is unheard of and honor is everything. Anyone caught lying can be completely stripped of birthright, citizenship, holdings—everything—and jailed, and those assets awarded to the wronged party. It’s better, and more admirable, to admit guilt to something, intentional or not, than to lie about it.

  I’m no legal expert but H’looder summed it all up for me. Pfahrn has a very strict legal code, with crime rates so low as to be practically nonexistent.

  Contracts, however, are another thing.

  For example, you don’t simply buy a meal at a restaurant. You enter into a contract to accept certain services from the restaurant, and in return you agree to pay them, contingent upon them delivering satisfactory results.

  Mohrn’s family entered into a private compensation contract with the family of the victim, meaning she’s bypassed official adjudication by legal authorities in lieu of a satisfactory contractual agreement. While she could serve a longer sentence on the surface of Pfahrn, which wouldn’t necessitate my involvement—if I agree to be involved—Mohrn had opted for a much shorter period of incarceration spent in the prison on the orbital satellite. Once her sentence is completed, she’ll leave Pfahrn and never return to the planet’s surface.

  Ever.

  I guess adding to the issues is that Mohrn is a mutation, and in their culture that is a very touchy subject. I was right when I thought that Pfahrn were usually green-skinned with reddish hair. Her family could pay someone from Pfahrn to do what I’m maybe going to do. That, however, comes with a much higher cost and, because of the circumstances, it potentially involves sticky contractual entanglements regarding birthrights, and estates, a
nd other issues that, honestly?

  I started zoning out as H’looder tried his best to explain the details he could and still maintain privacy. He also sent me a packet of information I skimmed but didn’t even make it a quarter of the way through, about Mohrn, about Pfahrn in general, and about their society and laws. Dry legal jargon that nearly puts me to sleep.

  The short version is that while at thirty human years old she’s older than me, by Pfahrn biology she’s a little younger. Pfahrn have much longer lives than humans and once they’re fully grown their aging slows a lot. She’s apparently close to an age where Pfahrn enter biological maturity and basically have to have sex every so often or they’ll die during that phase. Families usually have arrangements in place so limited-contract situations can take care of those needs, or the Pfahrn have made friends or other connections with their own kind and can contractually see themselves through that time.

  But due to the other surrounding circumstances, they would prefer not to have a Pfahrn partner for her.

  Because I’m not a Pfahrn, my biology isn’t the same—duh—so Maxim Colonies would use me as a test bunny. They’ll load me up with bionanotech, augmentations, and other things to tweak my physiology so I can…eh, perform.

  Apparently, not being able to perform won’t be an issue, H’looder assures me. Also, due to Pfahrn physiology, I’d need DNA infusions, as would Mohrn, so that things specific to Pfahrn anatomy and sex would work right. Like I guess they bite each other when mating, and that releases pheromones and hormones and all sorts of stuff that I obviously don’t have.

  H’looder assures me the tweaks that would be done to my body are completely reversible. They’d also include things like linguistics and translation augmentation for audio and visual, meaning I wouldn’t have to cram like a motherfucker to learn how to read and write their complex written language. My brain would automatically interpret it for me. And I’d be able to understand their spoken language. It will take me longer to learn how to speak it, but at least I could communicate through writing. Or, if the Pfahrn I have to deal with are patient, they can wait while I run my Standard through an internal translator and then try not to butcher it as I speak it to them. Likewise, Mohrn would be fitted with augmentation to understand my Standard.