by S E Zbasnik
"This is disgusting," Marek muttered as the gears wound up and a planet coated in red dust orbited above the dwarf's head. "You can't predict the future from a few spatial calculations."
"What do you know about the Astros?" Variel was surprised that her husband had knowledge of anything beyond what came with cheese filling.
"Crazy sect of 'New Age' cretins certain that they can find god's plan if they twist their telescopes just the right angle. A mass of 'em moved in a few doors down because 'the stars were right.'"
Variel didn't say anything, but she'd always wondered exactly how the Astros worked when anyone could alter their entire destiny by hiring a moving ship and settling down on a new base planet. Unless that was also part of god's plan all along. Deities could be sneaky bastards.
"Contrary to what you've been told, opening your mind won't cause your brains to fall out." She may not subscribe to the Astros personal view of the calculable future in the stars, but she also wasn't about to let her husband win.
"Ha!" he snorted shaking his head, watching the imaginary planet vanish back into its home. "I always suspected you weren't really dead."
"Hindsight isn't a super power," Variel said folding her arms and staring up at the ceiling. The stars were more inviting than the dizzying effects of the bottomless floor, or the vomit inducing sight of her husband.
"Leaving all your clothes, your stuff behind was convincing, but I knew in my gut you were still out there. You're too much of a bitch to go gently into that good night."
"You should put that on a greeting card."
"Oh dear," the dwarf lady collapsed beside their pew, her skirts tangling around a piece of upraised glass. She reached her ancient hands out to slow her fall and a shattering of light followed. Variel jumped to her feet, and dropped her hand around the old woman's shoulders, easily hefting her up in the low gravity.
"Are you all right?"
"I suspect so," the woman patted down her bones, searching for any major breaks or lacerations and came up empty. "I fear I shall shatter more than the floor one of these days," she muttered wiping her hands off.
Variel spotted the scrap of paper the mothers gave to her and picked it off the floor. Without cracking it, she handed it to the old woman, "You dropped your prophecy."
"Oh, thank you, young human," the dwarf said, falling back on what to do in case you can't guess someone's gender. "I feel as if I owe you something for caring for such a pottering old lady."
"Nonsense," Variel said, holding her hands up, "just doing my job."
A curious grin took over the old woman's face, "Are you now? Interesting." The woman's arms slipped into her heavy sleeves before coming back up, "Well, no matter. Allow me to shake your hand once more for your gratitude." Her small hand gripped tightly onto Variel's and then dropped back into her cloak. Without pausing to deign a glance at Marek, she shuffled back towards the exit of the building more steady on her feet than when she entered.
"Are you running for chief altar wiper? That was an incredibly revolting display of Good Samaritanism there," Marek sneered, waiting to voice his displeasure until the dwarf left.
Variel slid back into the pew beside her husband adding another foot of space between them. Her right hand unclasped and a black box sat inside. "Was it?" she asked, pocketing the gift before anyone got suspicious.
"This is what you gave up the sword for, to help little old ladies smashed on sacramental wine at four in the afternoon up off a broken glass land mine and out the door to do more damage?"
"I'm not discussing that with you," Variel said growing restless. Something was wrong. She'd expected to find someone watching them, an over interested candle lighter, a pair of mothers leaning out of the balcony, a lone choir member chanting by himself, even a bird lost in the rafters. But everyone waddled about their church business as if neither of them were there.
"And how'd that old lady shatter so much glass anyway?" Marek muttered too lost up his own belly button to watch his wife pocket a few of the jagged shards as she assisted the clumsy dwarf. "Don't we weigh the same as an apple?"
"That's on the third moon of Arda," Variel said, not wanting to get into how incredibly stupid her husband was at the moment. The sanctuary doors slipped open and real acolytes appeared, their freshly laundered robes covering their praying forms as they walked down the aisle speaking in hushed tones to find their reserved pews. Officially all were welcome to the Halls of Astros, but if you sat in Old Man Werther's seat you'd find yourself waking up without a pair of kidneys.
"Pass me that scroll," she said, a bad idea forming in the back of her head.
"What scroll?" Marek couldn't retain memory any better than a brain damaged goldfish.
"The one the mother gave us when we entered."
"It's just a list of what to do when all that false god stuff starts up. Stand up, sit down, spit on your neighbors. Heathen things."
Variel didn't wait for him to finish ranting and tore it from his fingers. She felt around the twin cylinders looking for the release. A knob, almost invisible to the eye wishing to pretend this was an ancient scroll hand drawn by monks at the bottom of the sea, prodded into her finger. She pushed into it, and the scroll quietly bonged. Pulling the cylinders apart, a screen booted up.
"Mr. Yates. Plans change. Behind the alleys of fifth and seventh."
Marek leaned over her shoulder as Variel groaned. "Damn it, I should have known. There are far too many eyes here to do a trade."
"Known what?"
Variel touched her ear lightly as she answered her husband, "Mr. Umai is craftier than I credited him for. He's keeping us on our toes by moving the meeting place. I just hope we're not too late."
She began to shift out of the pew. Turning back to her husband's dumbfounded look she grabbed onto his hand and yanked him with. To those who'd never seen a functioning relationship they looked a loving couple leaving with their heads chopped full of morality.
As she passed through the doors, the two mothers smiled warmly and motioned towards a fount where a statue of the twelve planets tipped endless water into a pool. Variel peered into the shining mass of ripples and dipped her fingers in, dragging the glittery substance across her forehead.
Marek watched with an undignified horror and muttered, "It looks like you got into a head on collision with a fairy."
Variel spooned another glob onto her fingers and wiped it across his head, letting the excess glitter soak into that oily skin. "Thank you for your assistance," Variel said and drug her whining husband out of the church.
A hiss like a startled cat echoed through the space between fifth and seventh street -- so named after the city comptroller failed to pass basic kindergarten math. It was another three years before they realized the city voted in a gargoyle child accidentally included on the ballot. Most people thought it was a particularly large and craggy troll until every other city ordinance was sponsored by the letter "S."
There was in fact a sixth street, it just ran underneath the sulfur lake. Not the most hospitable of neighborhoods but the traffic was a breeze.
Marek grimaced as his shoes skidded around grease tracks dripping from a poorly shielded cyborg dumpster. A pair of red eyes glared up from the darkness and he sprung back, whacking into Variel. She cursed him out and asked what the hell his problem was.
He pointed a jittery finger at the source of the eyes just as the demon crawled out of its hole. Little larger than a rat, its nose was shorter than its garbage dwelling brethren on Arda and the front arms thicker for slicing apart food. Oh, and it also had two inch long spikes running down its back, some of the discarded refuse already impaled for later digestion. The Not-a-Rat hissed again and swiped at the air to show the invading humans who was boss before scampering out of the alley.
"Gods," Marek groaned, "when someone said 'Design me a city that looks like the inside of a corpse's urethra' the response was, 'never mind, I've already found it."
"How do you know what a
urethra is?" Variel asked, eyeing up her husband as he tried to find something even vaguely clean to lean upon. She rolled her shoulders and tried to bury the pain burning in her abdomen. If this lasted any longer she was going to be in a bit of a bad situation, the dying sort.
Marek paled at her question, his sallow skin fading into trodden snow as he tried to pretend he hadn't sat through a lot of very invasive tests only to have them declare it 'a bladder stone, you big baby.' It wasn't easy going to doctors who were used to servicing soldiers that lost half a face and were part cyborg killing machine now. Instead of answering his suddenly prying wife he deflected in much the way he learned from her, "Lot of aliens for a human ship."
"It's a dwarf ship, technically. Keeps it free of most docking inspections, a lot of curious businessmen, nearly all invasive galactic laws, and the long arm of the Crest taxman. It's also damn expensive, but worth every sneezing banshee vid." Variel watched her husband, seeing if any of what she said sunk in.
"How can you stand it?"
Evidently not. "It's not that hard. You fill out about a dozen forms, leave a blood sample, then fill out a few more, promise your first born for collateral, and you're out with a sticker."
He sneered, "You know that's not what I meant, but you're not gonna answer properly anyway, so what's the point?"
"Does that mean you're not going to talk to me anymore? Oh, my poor heart is breaking," she scoffed, turning her glance back up the alley she'd swept three times. There was nary a sign of any hidden weapons, explosives, incendiary devices, or snares. Only the pastel shadows of the setting sun reached into but failed to plume the alleyways depths. She wasn't too surprised their drug mules favored here, even at high noon it was unlikely light could fully penetrate. Places like that got reputations whether they were deserved or not.
"So..." Marek said, bored of the few thoughts rattling in his head for entertainment.
She sighed and silently wondered what witch she pissed off to bind her to such a terrible curse. "I thought you weren't talking to me anymore."
Marek ignored that. He'd already worked up the nerve to crash into dangerous waters and wasn't about to back down now, "The elf, huh?"
"The elf, what?" she asked while lightly tapping her ear as if to filter out some other noise.
"How long you two been making the beast with two trunks?"
"What are you talking about?" she asked, at first trying to figure out his misplaced metaphor, then -- as it dawned -- to cover her terror that Marek noticed.
Unfortunately her husband was more observational than she liked to give him credit for, "Don't give me that coy, innocent shit. I know that way you look at him. Stiff as a plank when you're both near anyone else. You did the same every time you'd bring one of your 'good friends' home during planet leave. As if I couldn't figure out just how much he served under you."
"I never slept with anyone under my command," Terrwyn cursed, her voice dropping into a growl as she snapped at him.
Marek rolled his eyes, "Like I give a shit about the technicalities, sweetheart. I made a game out of it to see how long each one would last. If they gave you a snap of the wrist with a salute I knew he wasn't making it to Soulday."
She glared wanting to scream just what the hell was wrong with him, to drag up an old fight always left on the back burner in case they'd been getting on too well. To throw that pair of sisters he'd shattered back into his face, but it died in the back of her throat. Perhaps this was what growing up was.
"The other crew ain't got a clue, they don't know you proper. Not all of you at least. But the elf, he needs to work on it some more," Marek continued, enjoying the twist of a knife he could wield.
"How's that?" Variel asked, trying to not admit to anything aloud.
"Hovering about you like a bat, turn two steps and there's that Tails guy standing in the shadows, waiting to pounce."
"Perhaps he just doesn't like you," Variel said cautiously.
Marek laughed, "Ha, course not. I'm competition."
A very unkind laugh barked out of Variel's throat which transformed into a string of giggles as she tried to rein back in a countenance better for a night of dealing drugs. "Oh gods, stop, you're killing me," she said wiping a tear away, then added quickly under her breath, "not literally."
"I know," Marek said, affronted, "I am well versed in sarcasm."
"That was hyperbole, never mind."
"So, you gonna admit it or do I have to keep asking you? Perhaps in front of that jabbering moron you let fly your fancy ship about?"
Her eyes wandered over to Marek, still in his ridiculous outfit better suited for a man 15 years younger and 30 pounds lighter. The stains of space life were showing; some smudges from passing near the engines, an oily sheen courtesy of the sterilization gel they all walked under at the depot. He was as prepared for a life of space faring as a bird was swimming to the bottom of the ocean, but that little shit could still make her life hell if he let slip the wrong word at the wrong time.
"Yes."
"What? I think a clump of hanta virus clogged my ears." He wiggled his pinkie in his ear canal and said, "Say it again."
"Yes, fine, you're right. I'm sleeping with Taliesin."
"How's that work?"
"Oh for fucks sake," she threw her hands up and stomped around in a circle wishing she could walk away but knowing she couldn't, "can you go even ten seconds without being, without saying the most detestable shit from your narrow brain?"
Marek nodded solemnly along with her threat, then kept jumping into the fire, "Just with elves having that tiny nub and all I..."
Variel jumped into his face, a bit closer than she'd intended in the hoppy gravity and he tried to lean back, "If you do not stop this train of thought, I will stuff you in one of these dumpsters and hit the crush button."
He gulped at the rising glow of red in her eyes, rage reigniting her long dormant mods. Marek nodded an okay, okay, I won't ask anything more about your lover's genitalia and she stepped back, the red flickering down into her dark depths.
Variel returned to pacing, her fingers tapping against her hand as if she had her PALM up despite the device being silent. The fury leaving her body seemed to shame her, a strange sight for Marek. Every time he'd pushed her rage buttons, the only one he was allowed to touch, she'd revel in the power knowing how easily she could crush him like a bug. He'd relent, and she'd go back to whatever space hole kept most Knights in training busy. It was the backbone of their marriage. But this woman before him tossed her head shaking the once sustaining fury from her as if she was now allergic. For the first time he saw Variel and not Terrwyn with a goofy face.
"Why him?"
"Marek!"
"I'm not asking about the pants stuff!" he said raising his hands up. "I'm curious, why the elf? Indulge your husband."
"Indulging you is why I'm here in the first place," she said before dropping her hand. "You really want to know?"
"It's better than playing 'What's gonna give me scabies?' He seems a bit young for you there, robbing the cradle and all."
"You do realize he's an elf, and easily over 200 years old."
"Yeah, but don't they have elf years," Marek waved his hands around as if searching for his highly reputable source on elf years. "It's like dog years, but in reverse?"
"'Dog years?' Gods, never become a diplomat. We'd be thrown into a war with every species in the galaxy," Variel said, stalling for time. How does one answer that cursed 'so what drew you two together' question? A shared background of removing the life from people who really don't want to let go and a fondness for ancient dwarven battle songs didn't seem like the right answer. Now would be a really great time for a team of enraged ogres to tear through the alleyways searching for anything to smash. Or a shuttle on a collision course with the planet that appeared out of nowhere? How about a goat? Could you at least do a goat?
When no flying farm life appeared she sighed and said, "Honest and true? I like him."
"Yeah, I like him. Does it need to be anything more philosophical?"
"I dunno. I just thought there'd be some great big love story to get two people to cross the species boundary. At least a few salacious details."
Variel shook her head at his continuous need to wallow in the filth he proclaimed to hate. He hadn't been a full blown member of that babbling Pro-Human group Party 23, but he'd repeated enough of their talking points she made certain to never bring an alien guest to her home. She pinched her lips together with her fingers in mock thought and said, "What makes you think he was my first?"
"First fuck?" Marek asked, momentarily questioning if he'd married a sword climbing virgin who'd been too busy killing to get to the loving side of life.
"First alien."
A fresh hiss called from the end of the alley and the pair looked up to a set of three shadows descending upon them. Two were gigantic, their heads like blocks of granite left on top of rotund boulders to be carved later. A dwarf walked between the two trolls, the gait strange. As Marek slicked back his hair into something even more unpresentable Variel stood up, preparing herself. But before their contacts got into range she whispered into Marek's ear, "FYI, elves are growers not showers."
Her husband's mouth fell slack, unable to speak to the drug dealers from her jab. Instead she held her arms open and said, "Gentlemen, let us do business."
"The bits," one of the trolls grunted holding out its six fingered fist larger than Variel's head.
"In a minute," she said. "Prove you brought the merchandise."
The troll grumbled and turned towards the dwarf. Most of him was still in shadow, only a shimmer of a grey suit flashed into view as nondescript features twisted up, "I was under the impression I was working with a Mister Yates. Who might you be?"
Variel shielded her eyes as the dwarf lord spoke, the words failing to synch up properly with the movement of his lips. Anyone else would chalk that up to the universal translator's lag time. Curious, she thought. "I am Terrwyn Yates."