by J. S. Morin
Mort nodded. “I wouldn’t mind learning a trick like that. Sounds damned handy.”
“I practiced. I got good at it. I needed to, since my mother was never satisfied. Teeth, irises, ears, cheekbones. I’ve had my nose reshaped three times because she changed her mind about what looked best on me. Breasts, hips, buttocks, feet, fingers, and ribs, all adjusted to her liking. It took six tries shaping my vocal chords and soft palette until she liked my voice. Every follicle on my body has been replaced or removed. But it was when she decided to take me in for personality softening that I ran.”
Mort reached across the pod and put a hand on her shoulder. She flinched, but his touch was gentle and warm. “And you did the right thing.”
“My body barely has any fat cells left,” she said, sniffing. “I can’t go long periods without eating because my body can’t store it.”
“I meant with Carl,” Mort said. “But running away was right, too. Everyone here’s running from something. It’s the sort of place for people who don’t belong.”
“Chocolate bar?” Adam asked. Producing one from his pocket. Leave it to a ten-year-old to take provisions for sequestration of unknown duration and pack candy.
“Yes, thank you.” Esper snatched the bar, perhaps too violently to be considered polite, and tore the wrapper off. She bit into the bar and savored not just the flavor, but the gritty texture of the chocolate. “Where’d you get this?” she asked after swallowing her first bite.
“They’re Tanny’s, I think,” Mort said. Esper stopped cold. There was no feasible way to un-eat a bite of chocolate and put the wrapper back around it, but if there were she would have done it in an instant.
Mort just laughed. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell her. For all she’ll know, Adam ate it. I’m a fair hand at keeping secrets. For instance, I haven’t mentioned to anyone about that pendant you wear … and I don’t mean your order’s cross.”
Esper felt her face warm. There was no way he could know. Or could he? He was a wizard after all. “It’s just sentimental. I’ve had it forever.”
“Forever, or since you were … oh, eleven, maybe twelve of thirteen? Helps you out once a month, give or take? I can sniff out an enchantment as easily as you smell chocolate in the air. But like I said, I can keep a secret. I imagine you must be able to, too. The One Church is rather particular on that subject.”
Esper offered a weak smile. “None of them noticed, so I never said anything. It’s not against the vows.”
“What vows?” Adam asked.
Mort cleared his throat. “So, how long you think those repairs are going to take?”
# # #
Carl wished he had sent Tanny over to the Viper. She had the stronger stomach. Other navy officers, active and retired alike, kept up a stubborn rivalry with the marines, but Carl would never begrudge them the ability to walk through a pile of bodies without getting sick. There was no unseeing the things that Mort had done to the crew of the hostile vessel. All he could say for the wizard’s work was that it didn’t look like any of the mercenaries suffered long, and that with a strong enough alkaline solution, most of it would clean up. But Tanny was helping Roddy get the Mobius spaceworthy again, and Carl’s errand was less than vital in that regard. In the near term thereafter, what he was looking for could be crucial.
The Viper was roomier than the Mobius, the interior all colored in garish spray-art; probably the work of one of the crew. It was hard to imagine any captain paying to have that sort of thing done to virtually every interior surface of his ship, but then again, some captains had strange tastes. The haze of smoke made the air murky and caught the light from Carl’s hand lamp. There was no emergency lighting on board, but here and there an indicator blinked, showing that there was power at work somewhere to supply it. It was as good a sign as Carl could hope for. He headed toward the cockpit.
It was strange at times, being a fighter pilot by trade. His destination was, by all standard parlance, a bridge. Yet any enclosed space dedicated to flying made him revert to Typhoon jargon. The Viper’s bridge was abandoned. It appeared as if all hands had been called to battle Mort. Aside from the haze of smoke and the lack of ambient light, it looked serviceable. He sat down in the captain’s chair and hit a button at random on the armrest console. It lit.
“Hey Roddy,” he called over the comm. “How’s things?”
“You know,” the comm crackled, “This really isn’t the time to be riding my ass. Just leave me the hell alone to do my job. When the ship’s fixed, you’ll be the first to know.”
“Sorry, just thought you might be interested to hear that the Viper has power to her bridge.”
“You gotta be fucking kidding me,” Roddy replied. “Mort fried the Mobius worse than their scrap heap? I installed all that obsidian for nothing?”
“We planned ahead for gravity and astral drive,” Carl replied. “We didn’t have a contingency for Mort impersonating Genghis Khan.”
“I’m going to have to tell Mort that one,” said Tanny. It was an open comm among the EV helms and the cockpit, so Tanny and Mriy heard everything they said. “He’d get a kick.”
“Who is Genkis Khan?” Mriy asked.
“Human from about a million years ago,” Carl replied. He didn’t know exactly, and Mriy probably didn’t care. “He killed half a continent’s worth of people using tech like the azrins had before the rest of the galaxy discovered you.”
“I think I like him,” Mriy replied.
“So how ‘bout it Roddy?” Carl asked. “With the two ships joined up, could we use the Viper’s life support to clear both ships?”
“You owe me a beer,” Roddy replied.
“I what?”
“Not you,” Tanny replied. “I bet him you’d be more trouble than help.”
“Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
Carl settled back in the captain’s chair and fiddled with the controls until he got the main screen to display the communications logs. It was reverse chronological and had both voice transcriptions and text communiques intermixed. It was fancy. If Carl wanted to keep records of his comm traffic, he had to link a datapad to the Mobius’s computer. After skipping past the conversation between himself and the Viper’s captain—which carried a strange sense of deja vu—he found what he was looking for:
0832:05:15:2560 C.B.DYSON: 75000 NOW, REST WHEN ADAM DELIVERED SAFELY.
DESTINATION TBD. ADAM WILL INFORM YOU AFTER RETRIEVAL. TRANSMITTING COURSE DATA.
“Gotcha.”
“What’s that?” Tanny asked. Carl had spoken with the comm still open. It was damnably inconvenient to turn off and on while wearing the helmet.
“You three, change of plans. Get over to the Viper’s cockpit. I need you all to see something.”
# # #
The hours passed, and the inside of the escape pod grew ever smaller. The walls stayed where they were of course; it was Esper’s need to be on the other side of them that kept growing. She kept looking out into the cargo bay through the pod’s tiny windows, looking for a glimpse of one of the crew in their EV suits or for some sign that the smoke was clearing. The problem was that the lights were so low outside the pod that the glare from the ones inside kept her from seeing much. To his credit, Mort had kept up a lively conversation to drag her mind away from their predicament.
“… and that’s when I knew that we were going to be stuck with Mriy on board,” Mort said, finishing what must have been his twentieth anecdote.
“So it was all a misunderstanding?” Adam asked. “She didn’t mean to kill him?”
Mort twisted his face and scratched his chin with one finger. “I can’t say for certain. Oh, I’m sure she didn’t start out meaning to kill her brother. Her kind fights for dominance in the family as a matter of course. It’s just … well, there are rules for that sort of thing, she didn’t follow them, and it happened. Azrin don’t think much is wrong with killing in general, but within the family they don’t put up with it.”
“Hopefully, the longer they’re exposed to human—I mean civilized—cultures, the more they’ll respect life,” Esper said. “Mriy doesn’t seem as bad as I’ve heard her kind are, but she’s still a savage.”
“No one’s as bad as the stories about their people,” Mort countered. “You should hear the stories they tell about us, especially in regards to dark science. I mean, just look at the two of us; then, consider those bastards who mucked up Adam’s brain, not to mention cloning him.”
Adam frowned. “My brain’s not mucked up. The doctors even said so.”
“Well, now there’s a—”
A thump from the door ended the debate abruptly. With a hiss of equalizing pressure, Esper’s ears popped and the door opened. Carl stood outside, still in his EV suit. He pressed a helmet into her hands, and tossed another to Mort. “Put those on and come out here. Adam, stay put.”
“What’s this all about?” Mort asked.
“We’re wasting the pod’s air. I’ll explain outside.”
Esper put hers on with some trepidation. The helmet had to have come from the Viper. She could only pray that it had not been taken from the dead. The rubber membrane sealed against the underside of her chin, and she took a deep breath. It was stale air, but the purified, sterile sort of stale, and there was no smell of anything unsavory having happened inside it recently.
Mort glared at Carl from beneath one raised eyebrow, but crammed the helmet over his head. “I feel like an idiot.”
“You look like one,” Carl said. “Now, get out so we don’t let Adam’s air out.”
Mriy was standing by to close the pod door and seal Adam safely back inside.
“So, what’s this all about?” Mort asked. “Why am I dressed up like some medieval motorcycle knight?”
“Sister Theresa, I think you have a holy duty to see to,” Carl said. “We’re about to inter nineteen men and women on Delos IX, and that ship is their coffin. We’ve cleared the ship; it’s safe. Go do what you need to do.”
Esper nodded. She found herself wondering whether it was pious to be thankful for such a grim duty. Alone among heathens and heretics, she was being asked to be a priestess once more.
“What about me?” Mort asked. “What am I out here for?”
“As soon as she’s done, you’re going to turn that place into a pyre.”
Esper walked away down the boarding tunnel and into the Viper. It was a scene she was never going to forget. She had seen death before, but it was the whispering sort: age, disease, or more commonly a combination of both. This was death that howled. Bodies burnt like candle wicks lay shoved against the walls. Others had been torn to pieces by forces she could not imagine, drenching whole corridors in splattered blood, through which trails of footprints tracked in both directions. There was little doubt that the Viper’s crew died in poor standing with the Lord. There were no mortally wounded to be brought back into grace before the end. It was all she could do to intercede on their behalf in death.
She wept, and prayed, and hoped fervently not to be sick inside her borrowed EV helmet.
# # #
“Fine,” said Mort, “Now that she’s out of earshot, can you tell me what’s going on? Like hell you want me using more magic in that ship.”
“Of course not,” Carl replied, pulling off his EV helmet. He pointed a finger to Roddy, who flicked on a plasma torch and tack welded the door to the escape pod shut.
Mort scowled, but Carl could see the water-wheels turning the wizard’s brain. “You got me. What’s the punchline?”
Carl handed Mort a datapad with a transcription of the Viper’s log. Mort took it gingerly by the edges and squinted down at it. After a moment, he straightened. Balancing the datapad in one hand like a serving platter, he tore the helmet from his head and threw it at Carl. “Air’s fine out here.”
“Yeah, Roddy got life support back up a couple hours ago. We needed you to see this first, before Esper.”
Mort scanned the datapad for a moment. “This doesn’t make any sense. C.B. Dyson is Chip, I presume. But why would Chip sell us out? How would he even have known about Adam? Was Chip in on this from the start?”
“Look at the date,” Carl prodded.
Mort squinted and held the datapad closer. “What on this infernal thing is supposed to be a date?”
Carl grabbed the datapad out of the wizard’s hands and pointed. “Right there. Those numbers, that’s a date. Today’s date.”
Mort’s eyes widened in dawning comprehension. “Chip’s still alive! Or back from the dead. Either way, he seems hell-bound on avenging himself on Adam, whom he probably blames for his—”
“Mort, it’s not Chip, it’s someone using Chip’s ID,” Carl replied. “This message was sent from the Mobius after we set course out of Delos. Using Chip’s rig. From his quarters.”
“From his quarters …” Mort repeated. “Not Esper!”
“No,” Carl replied. “Adam.”
“Why would the boy kidnap himself?”
Carl led Mort by the arm away from the escape pod. There was no way Adam should have been able to hear from inside, but he was beyond the point of taking those sorts of risks. “He’s not. He’s buying himself free. Esper’s plan to rescue him is naive; it’s going to get him picked up by Harmony Bay again. He wants a clean break, to disappear, all witnesses disposed of.”
“That means us,” Roddy clarified as he walked over to join them.
“How? Where would the boy get that kind of money?” Mort asked.
“Doctor James Augustus Cliffton,” Carl said with a smug smile.
Mort shook a finger in Carl’s direction. “Now, wait just a minute. Esper said that dark scientist was dead. We had a long talk in that infernal pod, and she mentioned checking up on him while she waited on Adam’s tests at the hospital. Was that a trick, or is this some elaborate scam?”
“The most elaborate scam I can think of. I’m convinced that Adam is Doctor Cliffton.”
“But that’s … now wait just a minute … you’re saying that little boy is a one-hundred twelve-year-old man?” Mort asked.
Carl nodded. “It explains everything. Adam’s tried ditching us at Willamette Station, but we ‘rescued’ him. He saw some unsavories at Duster’s who looked like they might be for hire and had a grudge, and transmitted our coordinates and heading. I bet he even arranged for that escape pod to jam in the first place; he’s been trying to lose Esper since before he met us. Who knows what else he tried that we never saw; all the records on our end are encrypted or destroyed. Doctor Cliffton is an expert with Chip’s stuff. I had to dig into the Viper’s computers to find proof.”
“And he put the Tally-ho on our trail, too, I bet,” Mort said.
“Maybe, but I’m guessing it was just Penny-Toad doing his job, policing the smuggling lanes. Getting picked up by a Navy patrol wouldn’t do him much good.”
“So what now?” Mort asked. “We toss him out a window in that pod?”
Carl chuckled. “It’s tempting, but no. I’ve got something better in mind. But first I needed to know I had you on board. Now? Now, I’ve got the hard part.”
# # #
It was as embarrassing as it was sad, losing count of the dead. Esper could have convinced herself of anywhere from seventeen to twenty. She was no forensics expert to say whose remains were whose, and where one began and another ended. The few who died alone were easiest. The filter on the EV helm kept away the smell and put a barrier of translucent plastic between her eyes and the horrors around her. It was all that kept her from being sick at the sights around her. Through the visor, she could imagine that it was all just a vivid simulation. A vague worry gnawed at her that she wasn’t praying for real men and women, but for mere holograms.
The footsteps startled her into a gasp. Could there have been a survivor? As it turned out, it was just Carl in an EV helmet. The nonchalant swagger that he took wherever he went was absent. She almost wished he had been flippant abou
t the carnage, just so she could chastise him for his part in it. Mort had been so … proud wasn’t the right word … righteous, perhaps? It had been hard to argue with him. After all, she was only alive because of his intervention; so were the rest of them. Barring a miracle, the crew of the Viper would have killed them, and demanding a miracle was the epitome of Pride.
“You good here?” Carl asked, sweeping a pointed finger around the floor.
“No,” she snapped, finding the opening she needed to vent her frustration. “There’s nothing good here at all. Vile men or not, these deaths are on your hands, and you should treat them with a little more—”
“Easy; easy. I’m sorry,” Carl said, holding up his hands. “But it’s not me who brewed this batch of vinegar. Wasn’t Mort either; he just cleaned it up … well, clean maybe isn’t the right word. But come up to the bridge and I’ll show you who’s to blame.”
“Who?” she asked.
“I need you to see this for yourself,” Carl replied. “I seem to recall bragging about being a lying sonofabitch, so I think the Viper’s computers have a bit more credibility.”
Esper followed Carl toward the front of the ship. “And you couldn’t have altered this ship’s records?”
Carl looked over his shoulder as he walked, the EV helmet masking his expression behind six millimeters of smoky black plastic. “You’ve been bunking in our computer guy’s quarters; you performed his funeral yourself. Maybe it’s your turn to show a little respect. These sim-hustlers were trying to kill us; Chip was family.”
Esper followed quietly after that. It was true, everyone in the crew knew Carl was a gifted liar; they seemed oddly proud of it. But there was something in his voice that she had to believe was genuine—unless that was just how good a liar he truly was. At some point, she had to trust to her own judgment and decide whether he was the man he claimed to be, lies and all.
When the cockpit door closed behind her, Carl took off his helmet. “Air’s clean enough to breathe. Just didn’t want to smell Mort’s handiwork.” He pointed to the captain’s chair. “Have a seat.”