by J. S. Morin
Esper obliged and set her own EV helmet at her feet. “What am I looking at?”
“Pull up the ship’s comm log, starting with today and working backward.”
“What am I looking for in there?”
“It stands out a bit. Don’t worry.”
The armrest console was simple enough to operate that she had no trouble with the unfamiliar system. For a mercenary vessel, the buttons and screens were all bright, cheerful, and helpful. In moments she had brought up the most recent communications to and from the Viper. She read the past day’s entries with particular attention to detail as a hollow feeling welled inside her. Hoping she had missed some crucial detail, she read them once more. And when that reading failed to change her mind, she went through a third time, poring over one word at a time, trying to find double-meanings, mistaken identities, or unclear motivations.
“Now you see why I needed to show you, not just tell you?” Carl asked. His voice was soft and compassionate. She had already pieced the puzzle together, no doubt.
“I can’t believe it was him all along.”
“Old man is a blasted good actor; I’ll give him that much,” Carl replied. “He never … you know … tried anything, did he? I mean, you shared quarters and all.”
Esper gave a sad, halfhearted smirk. “I made him turn away when I changed, and he never tried so much as a peek. You never would have known he was a grown man inside there. What are we going to do?”
“Well, we’re certainly not letting him run loose,” Carl said. “We locked him up in the escape pod. And we certainly can’t deliver him to some poor, unsuspecting couple on Mars.”
“You’re not going to kill him, are you?” Esper asked, seeing where this line of logic was headed.
Carl scratched at the side of his head, losing his fingers in the mop of helmet-sweated hair. “Well, you see, we talked that one over, and none of us can kill a kid, even if he’s not really a kid.”
“So what, then?”
“We’re turning him over to Harmony Bay,” Carl replied.
Esper gasped. “But they’ll—”
“Yeah, probably,” Carl said, not even letting her finish. “But if we don’t, and they get wind we had him, they’ll dissect our brains to figure out where he went. We give him back; we wipe our hands clean of it. Tanny’s already put the call in. They had a ship not too far off, be here in a few hours on a deep run.”
Esper swallowed. There was a detail that Carl’s plan was overlooking. “But they’ll want me, too.”
“That’s why we have to kill you first.”
# # #
Roddy sat on the floor of the cargo back with a portable power supply and a multitool, all fours hands working inside a panel of the escape pod. While the laaku worked, Adam knelt on one of the pod’s seats, glaring out one of the windows. If looks could kill, his would have, but those sorts of powers were the province of wizards, not scientists. Without the tools of their various trades, men of science were just animals, left to the defenses of tooth and limb … or voice, if they were lucky enough to find an adversary who could be overcome by reason or threat.
“That ought to do it,” Roddy reported.
“Hey, Adam,” Carl called out. “Can you hear me in there?”
“Let me out of here,” Adam whined. “This isn’t funny.”
“You’re not supposed to find it funny, Doctor Cliffton,” Carl said, walking over to stand face to face with Adam, with just the window separating them. “None of us are laughing out here. You’ve left a lot of men dead in your trail and gotten their blood on our hands. But we’ve found you out.”
“What do you mean? I’m not Doctor Cliffton; he’s old. My name is Adam. It’s Sister Theresa who’s trying to get rid of you. She made me promise not to tell; she said she’d send me back to the Harmony Bay people if I didn’t go along with her. I’m sorry. Please don’t kill me.”
Carl offered a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry; we’re not going to kill you. You’re valuable. Your accomplice, on the other hand …” Carl pointed outside Adam’s field of view, and Tanny brought Esper over, wrists bound behind her back in a pair of duramite shackles they had found aboard the Viper. Though of similar heights, the difference in build between the two women was apparent in the ease with which Tanny manhandled the disgraced priestess.
“Adam, tell them I had nothing to do with this!” Esper pleaded, twisting around to face the escape pod. “Doctor Cliffton, don’t let them kill me!” Carl had considered letting Esper think they were really going to go through with it, but he couldn’t bring himself to be so cruel. Her acting was believable at least. It didn’t hurt that Tanny had told her to give her best effort at breaking free. That much wasn’t an act.
Within the escape pod, Adam grew quiet. “What do you want? I’ve got money, friends. I can get you things.”
“If I believed a word of your promises I might consider it,” Carl replied. “But considering you’ve tried at least twice to kill us, I’ll take the bounty from Harmony Bay instead.”
“Adam, please!” Esper shouted. Tanny forced her head down as she pushed Esper through the boarding tunnel. A moment later there was the thump of a door closing, and only Tanny returned.
“You’re bluffing,” Adam replied. “You aren’t that cold blooded.”
Carl put on his EV helmet, and then the rest of his suit. In full view of the escape pod, Roddy did likewise, and Tanny left for the common room. A klaxon sounded as the air was pumped from the cargo hold, quieting when no air was left to carry the sound. With Adam watching, Roddy cut the Viper free of the Mobius. Through careful maneuvering, the Viper stayed in view through the hole in the cargo bay door. Bolts of violet plasma from the Mobius’s turret slammed into the drifting ship, carving holes in the hull until one ignited the ship’s oxygen in a jet of flame. Several more shots and the Viper headed for the atmosphere of Delos IX.
Roddy began welding a plate in place to seal the cargo door.
“Show’s over,” Carl said through the comm in his helmet. Reaching down, he ripped the external power supply from the pod, ending communication with the furious and terrified occupant.
At the back of the cargo bay, outside the view of the escape pod, Esper stepped out of the personnel airlock in a poorly-fitted EV suit from the Viper. Carl held a finger to his lips, winked, and helped her up the stairs to the common room without tripping over boots five centimeters too big for her feet.
# # #
The Bradbury dropped from astral, gleaming in the light of the distant sun. It was no standard class that Carl was familiar with, but that wasn’t surprising. The design was probably new since the last time he’d been in truly civilized space. Sleek and pristine white, it looked like a piece of medical equipment had been launched into space. Within seconds of arrival, the ship hailed them.
“Vessel Mobius, this is the Bradbury. Hold position and prepare for docking.” The voice was clear, crisp, and female, but whether it was human or computer, Carl couldn’t tell.
“Friendly sorts,” he muttered.
Tanny nodded and rolled her eyes, reaching for the comm. “Bradbury, this is Mobius, message confirmed. Holding position and releasing docking locks.” She slumped back into the pilot’s chair—her chair, Carl had to remind himself—and crossed her arms. “You feeling good about this?”
“Dumping the kid on them? Yeah,” Carl said. “Because I can tell myself that if that ever really was a kid, the only ones who can get him back are the Harmony Bay scientists. If he was just a clone, and there’s nothing more than an asshole scientist in there … well, he’s getting what’s coming to him. Now … if you meant whether I liked our odds of survival, I’m a coin-toss still.”
Tanny grimaced. “That bad?”
Carl chuckled. “Naw, I think Mort’ll pull us out of this just fine. You just stay up here, watch those instruments, and hit the throttle the second we’re in astral. Oh … and be careful, I had Roddy remove most of the safeties.” C
arl scurried from the cockpit before Tanny could retaliate against him.
Mort and Roddy were waiting for him in the cargo hold. Esper was hiding with Mriy in Mort’s quarters. Carl had always been wary of the azrin around scientists, more for their safety than hers, and Esper obviously had to remain hidden. The spells in Mort’s quarters ought to have been plenty to conceal them both.
The docking hatch opened in the center of the cargo hold floor, and a contingent of five climbed up one by one. The first two were security goons in pressed black uniforms that showed off bulging muscle beneath; they carried blaster pistols, but didn’t look like the sorts who used them much. Next came a technician who juggled a scanner as she climbed the ladder into the Mobius. After her, an officer in a navy-style uniform, less the badges and rank insignia, scampered smartly up behind the technician; she was older, possibly close to Mort’s age, with grey hair and an easy air of authority around her. Last came a hard-eyed man in an untucked shirt and denim pants.
“I am Captain Yasmira Dominguez of the Bradbury,” the officer greeted them.
“Carl Ramsey,” he replied, holding out his hand. “Mobius is my boat.” To his surprise Captain Dominguez not only took the offered hand, but gave him a firm shake. It was the most respect he’d gotten out of anyone on as official a ship as the Bradbury. Maybe the corporate types weren’t as bad as he gave them credit for.
“Where is the boy?” Captain Dominguez asked.
Carl pointed to Roddy, who flipped down a pair of protective goggles and flicked on a plasma torch. In seconds, he cut through the weld that sealed the pod shut. The two goons didn’t need telling, they marched forward in lock step; one yanked open the door, the other grabbed Adam around the waist and hauled him out.
“Is this him?” Captain Dominguez asked. The tech and the hard-eyed man came forward; the tech fiddling with her scanner, the hard-eyed man staring at Adam intently.
“James,” the hard-eyed man said. “If that’s you in there, you’d better explain yourself. You’re a crowning success if you are. If not, the team’s prepped and ready for when we get you back; they’ll figure out what’s in that skull of yours.”
Adam could not have looked more undignified without serious effort. He was slung beneath the arm of one of the goons, arms and legs dangling, squirming ineffectively. “Call them off, Alvin. Call them off. I’ll show you everything.”
“Where is your accomplice?” Captain Dominguez asked. “Where is Sister Theresa?”
“No one said anything about wanting her back,” Carl put in. “We sent her down with the ship your friend here called in to dust us.”
“She’s dead?” Captain Dominguez asked. “You people executed her?”
“If you want to get technical,” Carl replied. “We told her not to go into the Viper. But she didn’t listen, and we cut it loose with her inside.” It was a lie to cover a different lie, and Carl made no effort to sound sincere.
“Alvin, these people are monsters,” Adam said. “If they didn’t think they could get paid for returning me, they’d have sent me right along with her. Don’t give them a single terra.”
“We don’t want any money,” Carl said. Everyone stopped a moment to look at him like a zoo exhibit. “All I want is a guarantee that this little shit never bothers any of us again.”
The lips of the man called Alvin twitched. “Oh, no worries of that.” That sealed it; the Bradbury was going to dust them. Alvin lied like a … well, like the ten-year-old Adam appeared to be. He probably thought he was being clever and coy.
“Well, we won’t keep you any longer,” Carl said. “We’ve got an appointment in the Orion cluster. We’ll be heading out just as soon as you drop astral.”
Carl waved as the delegation from the Bradbury climbed down to their own ship. As soon as the docking hatch closed, he sprinted up the steps to the common room and shouted to the wizard. “Get us astral now, and get us deep.”
Carl ran to the cockpit as Mort chanted the spell to send them between stars. He was panting as he came up behind Tanny and looked at the displays. “They’re just disengaging now,” she reported.
Carl nodded. “Mort’s … got this.” He hoped Mort had it.
He lost sight of the Bradbury through the cockpit windows and turned his attention to the radar, focusing on the distance between them and the Harmony Bay ship. They were still in the sensor shadow of Delos IX, hidden from view by the observation posts on Delos. In areas of unobserved space, there was no law, no rule, no witness. The Bradbury backed away to a safe range to blast them to dust.
An indicator light perked up, showing the Bradbury powering its plasma cannons. Tanny’s finger was already over the button to raise their own shields. But before she even had to hit it, space dropped away around them. Delos IX took on a ghostly aspect, no longer green, but a wispy grey monochrome. The Bradbury was gone.
Tanny reached for the throttle, and they sped from the scene at a speed that the Bradbury couldn’t hope to match. They didn’t have Mordecai The Brown to send them 11.42 standard astral units deep.
# # #
Esper sat in the middle of Chip’s old quarters, surrounded by boxes of his things. Despite the clutter, the room felt empty. The walls had been stripped bare of pictures. The floor was no longer supplemental storage for half the ship’s communications systems. Chip’s clothes were folded neatly inside a footlocker, along with a few datapads, a stack of Battle Minions datacards, and a threadbare plush elephant. Carl had repatriated Chip’s private stash of booze to the common area fridge, but the rest was bound for Mars and Chip’s family, to be shipped at the next stop the Mobius made. Carl hadn’t said yet where that would be.
With her hands folded in her lap, she found herself with nothing to do. The window view out into the astral void showed pinpricks of distant stars, barely drifting but passing at a phenomenal rate. It was all out there—all of it. The good, the bad, the in-between, and in all of it, nowhere to go. Maybe she would take Mort’s advice and become a Seeker. She certainly hadn’t found any answers yet, not to anything important. Going back to the One Church seemed … unwise. Harmony Bay had likely reported her dead, if not to the proper authorities, then at least to the Church on Bentus VIII. Going back to her family was out of the question. Maybe some of her friends had broken free of the insidious grasp of New Singapore high society and left Mars for a simpler life.
Whatever she decided to do, it wouldn’t be resolved sitting amid all Chip’s belongings, fretting over it. Taking a deep, soul-cleansing breath, she resolved to park herself in front of the ship’s holovid and wait to see where Carl decided to drop her off. She marched up the steps to find out what everyone was watching.
“Hey,” Mort greeted her with a smile. His feet were up on the couch beside him, and he had a can of beer in hand. Roddy and Mriy acknowledged her as well, as they sat watching an old episode of Springwillow Valley. It just figured that of all the things they’d pick to watch, they chose a program she knew by heart. Mort reached over and grabbed another can. “Want one?” he asked.
Esper was about to refuse his offer by reflex, but instead paused to consider. She decided that she didn’t want a beer, but she really wanted to want one. It had been years since the last time she was drunk, or even had anything more than a sip of wine. “Thanks, I think I will.” She panicked when Mort threw it to her, holding out her hands in an awkward cross between a cradling motion and snatching something hot from a stove top. But the can stopped in mid-air, within easy reach. Before she could get mad at Mort for the prank, he smiled—it hadn’t been a prank at all; it was just Mort’s way of dealing with the world.
Esper popped the top and tipped it back. It was swill, the cheapest, hoppiest sewer water Earth exported: Earth’s Preferred. She fought down the mouthful and gasped. Her mouth and throat burned. At Mort, Roddy, and Mriy’s looks of concern, she offered a weak smile. “Before I came here, I hadn’t had beer since I was …” she fought to remember back. “… sixteen.”
“When you think you can manage, Carl wanted to see you down in the cargo hold,” Mort said.
“Oh?” she asked. “Did he say why?”
“Nope.” The wizard’s attention was clearly more focused on the soppy drama on the holovid than on whatever Carl was up to.
“Thanks,” she replied. So instead of finding a place among the holovid viewers, she wove her way past them on her way to the cargo hold, jostling Mriy, who deigned not to say anything. Esper muttered an apology anyway.
She felt silly carrying a can of beer with her, but she didn’t want to offend anyone by abandoning it with just a single sip gone. As she put her hand on the door, she heard strange, muffled music coming from the other side. When she opened the door, it hit her like an avalanche. Carl sat on the crate of expensive military guns, the ones they had taken from the first men Adam had hired to steal him away. He was playing the top half of a double-guitar, but it sounded broken. There was interference on the built-in speakers, making everything sound fuzzy and scratchy. It was a tune Esper had never heard before, and she had obviously come in the middle of it, because Carl kept playing after noticing her. He just gave her a quick nod, then lost himself in the music again. A few times she caught him wincing at an off-key note, but the whole thing sounded a bit off to her ears anyway. At the end, she gave an awkward clap around the can in her hand.
“I didn’t know you were a musician,” Esper said, coming down the steps to talk at a more comfortable distance.
“Not much of one,” Carl replied, lifting the guitar strap over his head and resting the instrument by his feet. “This is Roddy’s. He can play both sets at once. He’d have been a musician if he wasn’t such a good mechanic.”
“You should get it fixed if you’re going to play it so loud,” Esper said.
Carl chuckled and reached for a half-empty beer by his feet. “It’s not broken, that’s just my playing. It’s old classical rock music. My parents raised me on this shit. It seeped in. But that’s not why I called you down here.”