by J. S. Morin
“Listen,” said Mort. “Here’s how it’s going to work. You have a choice. You open that door for me, let me look around, and let me wipe your memory. If I find what I’m looking for, you’ll wake up with a hand full of hardcoin for your troubles. If I don’t, you’ll just wake up confused. Now, if you don’t want to help me, I’ll have that door off its hinges, I’ll still look around inside, and they’ll find you a drooling imbecile because I had to wipe most of your mind to make sure you forgot me. Intelligas?”
The clerk nodded. His fingers began tracing the patterns required to open the lock.
Half an hour later, Mort departed empty-handed, leaving a befuddled adept of the Convocation staring into an hourglass, wondering where his afternoon had gone.
# # #
Keesha Bell’s home was an imitation of the Earth History Museum in Stockholm Prime. Smaller in scope, lesser in the prestige of each exhibit, it was nonetheless an overwhelming display for a private collection. Ms. Bell had spent hours parrying Carl’s requests for information about the job as she showed him around.
“Your eyes are glossing over,” she observed. “This ought to bring back memories. Do you recognize this piece?”
Carl blinked. It fit in so perfectly with the surroundings, he hadn’t even taken note of it. “That’s the violin we picked up for you on Janus II. It cleaned up nice.”
Ms. Bell arched an eyebrow. “Indeed.” Carl and his crew hadn’t exactly delivered it in pristine condition, but there had been extenuating circumstances. “I have someone procuring an authentic bow to pair with it, though I can’t imagine finding one by Stradivarius. The display just lacks something without the bow though.”
“Yeah,” Carl muttered. It was hard to think of the museum as lacking much of anything.
“The parcel you delivered from Roger Krause is here as well,” Ms. Bell said. “Care to guess which it is?”
“I don’t look in the package,” Carl replied. “I wouldn’t know where to start guessing.”
Ms. Bell smiled and gave a nod of acknowledgment. “Of course you don’t. Your father was never good with that one.”
“Well, me and him aren’t much alike.”
Ms. Bell walked around Carl, looking at him from all angles. “In looks, no, but you sound just like him. He was always quick with his tongue. Impatient, too. You lasted perhaps ten minutes longer on this tour than he did, before your mind wandered off completely.”
“Real observant. You want my attention, tell me what you need me for,” Carl replied.
“In time,” Ms. Bell replied. “But I see no reason to rush into things. You’re going to be acting with my reputation in hand, and I want the full measure of you before I allow you to leave with it. For instance, I was pleased to hear about your remarriage. You and Tania seem suited to one another.”
“And here I thought you had spies,” Carl said with a snicker. “That’s old news. Married … and divorced again. It’s fate, I think.”
“Perhaps I misjudged you, then,” Ms. Bell said.
“Now, wait just a minute—”
“Your father may have been many things, but he was reliable. He could put his problems aside and get a job done. The fact that he was a stable family man was reassuring. I knew he had a reason to succeed. But if you can’t even—”
“It was a misunderstanding,” Carl snapped.
“Misunderstanding …” Ms. Bell echoed, prompting him to elaborate.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but yeah,” Carl replied. “It was all part of a job. Strictly business. I only lied to Tanny about it to keep things from getting complicated.”
Ms. Bell stopped. For a moment the wrinkles hidden beneath that smooth complexion showed through. “You lied to your wife about sleeping with another woman?”
Carl shrugged.
“And you consider this a misunderstanding?”
Carl lowered his head and offered a weak smile. “Yeah?”
“I’ll send Hobson to take you back to your ship,” Ms. Bell said. “It appears I have wasted your time and mine.” She turned to walk away.
“Hey, hold on,” Carl said. He reached to grab her by the arm, then thought better of it. He hustled to get ahead of her as she left the room. “You think I don’t judge people well?”
She stopped. “Prove me wrong, then?”
“You’re bustle is off kilter because Mort didn’t come,” Carl said. “You two haven’t seen each other since Mort was my age, and you liked the idea of taking a renegade wizard to your bed. But Hobson let you know in advance it was just me coming. You changed your plans and set your sights on me, but you were disappointed when I got here; you expected a young version of my dad.” Carl grimaced at a disturbing image that snuck up on him. “Which I’m guessing means you had a thing for him, back in the day. He probably cheated on my mom with you. You spent the afternoon trying to decide whether to settle for me, delay me until Mort came looking for me, or just give up on the whole mess. But you don’t get a lot of visitors, so you were in no rush to call things off. Same way you’re still in no rush to send me off on this job of yours.”
Ms. Bell stood motionless, save for the smoldering eyes that bored into Carl’s forehead. He tried to remember the signs Mort had taught him to tell if anyone was fiddling with his mind using magic, but all he could feel was the weight of her scrutiny.
“Your mother was a trusting woman,” Ms. Bell replied. “Your father was the scoundrel who kept his word when it suited him. You’ve inherited nothing of his looks, but you are so much like him otherwise.”
“Fuck you,” Carl replied. “My father was small time. A coward. He went behind people’s backs because he couldn’t lie to their faces. Anyone pulled a blaster on him, he folded faster than a busted straight. If my mother had half the brains Tanny does, she’d have blown his head off herself.”
“How do you do that?” she asked.
“Huh? Do what?”
“I can’t read you at all,” Ms. Bell replied. “I’ve made a great deal of money by knowing when someone is lying to me.”
Carl grinned. “My father was a saint. Well, he was a thief and a con, but he never did any wrong by my mother. You never got him into your bed, but not for lack of trying. If you did, it was by magic.”
“I know you lied,” Ms. Bell said, her perplexed frown deepening. “I heard the contradictions, but I can’t tell that you lied.”
“You’re an old friend of Mort’s, so I let that much slip,” Carl said. “That’s all you get though. I don’t pull back the curtain on the puppet show for anyone. Mort pounded that one into my head with thunderbolts.
“But if you want to know why you should still give me the job, it’s this: Mobius is a ghost ship. We ever get stopped by a patrol, our cargo hold is empty, our ship’s log is boring, and my crew knows nothing. That’s how we get jobs done, and that’s how we’re going to get your cargo delivered, whatever the hell it might be.”
Carl was still smirking in self-satisfaction when Hobson interrupted. He whispered something Carl couldn’t make out, and handed a handwritten note to Ms. Bell. Hobson departed without a word to Carl or so much as a glance to catch his eye. Carl waited with his hands clasped behind his back, rocking between his heels and the balls of his feet as Ms. Bell read.
The handwritten page ignited in her hand, crumbling to ash in seconds. “It seems your azrin crewman has gotten herself arrested. Some anti-xeno hooligans attended the same combat sports exhibition and there was an altercation. Normally the authorities would just let the sentient non-human free, but there was excessive property damage and two serious injuries, injuries that would have proved fatal without the medical staff on site for the combat sports.”
“Yeah, that sounds like Mriy,” Carl said with a shrug. “We gonna have a problem there?”
A sly smile spread on Ms. Bell’s face. “I could smooth out any snags by … morning, perhaps?”
“You like a man who’s hard to get, huh?” Carl aske
d. He didn’t wait for a reply. “Well, you’re going to like me a lot. Now, don’t get me wrong; I like games, but I don’t like being the prize. Hell, I’m no prize, and I know it. But I’m done with this little game. If you’ve got pull with the locals—which I’m sure you do—then get Mriy released, give me the contact I need to do this job of yours, and let me get to work. If you won’t help, I’ll find a way to get her out myself, and we can call the whole deal off.”
She took him by the chin. Startled, Carl let her guide his face down until his eyes were level with hers. “Never look a strange wizard in the eye,” Mort had taught him, along with “all wizards are strange.” But it was too late now, and as Carl stared into the swirling depths that lurked behind Ms. Bell’s eyes, he found himself unable to blink or turn away.
He straightened and blinked a moment later when she released him. “What’d you do to me?” he demanded.
“A coded message for your contact on Vi Tik Naa,” Ms. Bell replied. “That will serve as both introduction and confirmation of your identity. No scientific scanner can intercept, decode, or even perceive it. Hobson will transmit a location to your ship.”
“That doesn’t sound like ARGO territory,” Carl said, referring to the bizarre system name. ARGO space was filled with mythological references, esteemed historical figures, and Greek letters, with a smattering of self-aggrandizing modern explorers thrown in.
“It’s in-Tik territory. I don’t expect that will be a problem for you.”
It was too late now even if it was. Carl played along. “Course not. Guess I’ll be on my way then.”
“Stay for dinner,” Ms. Bell said. “I’ve had the cook outside grilling authentic Earth-style burgers made from local bison.”
“Mort’s favorite,” Carl noted. He chuckled. “Yeah, sure.”
# # #
Carl stumbled into the common room of the Mobius at nearly midnight local time. He was met with the wailing symphonic soundtrack to a weepy holovid drama. On the far side of the holographic romance unfolding in the middle of the room, a strange woman reclined on the couch. She was dressed in form-fit kevlex with ablative armor plates, with a midriff length leather jacket on over it, too small to zip closed. Her hair was a nest of braids wound into a knot at the top of her head. Black, marine surplus boots came up to her calves, with clasps every few centimeters. In one hand she held the remote for the holo-vid, in the other a bottle of something that was undoubtedly alcoholic. With a long, hard, second look, Carl realized it was Esper.
“The hell happened to you?” he asked.
“Tanny,” Esper slurred, holding the bottle up as she shrugged. “We shopped.”
“Where’s she now?”
“We drinked … drank? Drinked. She met a friend … old friend. He said he knew her somewhere. She said yeah but I don’t think she knew him. He was cute so she lied for sex. That’s where she is. Getting her brains sinned out. Ditched me.”
“Oh,” Carl said, working his way through what Esper said to figure out what she meant.
Esper raised the bottle, but instead of drinking she brought it to eye level. “You know, I’m sinning too now, dammit. Tanny’s fault. But … you know … the more of this sinning I do, the less guilty I feel about it. Like a vicious sickle. Except it tastes like peaches.”
Carl pointed a finger from each hand in Esper’s direction. “I know you’re new at this … but you’re drunk.”
Esper spread her arms and looked up at the ceiling. “No … fucking … shit.”
Carl fought back a fit of laughter. “I like the new look.”
“Oh, you like this?” Esper asked, gesturing up and down her outfit with her bottle hand. She snorted. “Typical.” She took a swig from her bottle of peach liquor. Carl noticed that there was a six-pack with five more like it; she wasn’t even a full bottle deep. “Tanny dressed up me like a soldier. Let’s pick out something comfy, maybe a nice dress or three or four. No, no dresses for you. You’re just gonna get kidnapped and raped and we’ll have to rescue you. Gotta look tough.” Esper managed an overblown impression of Tanny, deepening her voice. “How about we get our hair done. Sure, short hair makes more sense on a ship. No, I like my hair. Argued about it for like an hour maybe two. Well, maybe a few minutes. Ended up with braids. Gonna take me like an hour to redo it every time I shower. How often you need to shower? Tanny’s some kind of barbarian woman.”
“Kinda,” Carl agreed, grinning. Weary as he was from his day, he leaned against a wall to let Esper’s rant to play itself out.
Someone in the holovid moaned and professed an undying love. Esper frowned at it and shut the holoviewer off. “I see you looking at me, all grinning. I know what you’re thinking.”
“That’ll put you one up on Keesha Bell.”
“You’re thinking you want me.”
Carl closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, he pointed to the five-pack on the floor. “Look, I appreciate the effort—I really do—but you need to cut back and learn your limit on that stuff. Stick to beer for a while maybe.”
Esper hugged her bottle close. “Beer’s yucky.”
“Go get some sleep.”
“Or she can come down and learn to weld,” Roddy said, causing Carl to flinch.
“Dammit!” Carl said. “Where’d you come from?”
“Door wasn’t shut. I just came in behind you while you were ogling Esper.”
“See?” Esper said. “You were.”
“Welding sober’s too easy,” Roddy said. “Learn drunk and you’ll never have any trouble sober.”
“Bed,” Carl said, jabbing a finger Esper’s way. He turned to Roddy. “And you, stop encouraging her.”
“Hey, we got a job or not?” Roddy asked, changing the subject. “Cuz I found some sweet stuff in Andrews Station this afternoon. Real sweet. More cash than we’ve got going, but maybe coming back …”
Carl grabbed two beers from the fridge and handed one down to Roddy. “Yeah, yeah. We’ve got a job. Won’t know the details until we meet our contact though. Keesha Bell’s just brokering this one. She didn’t even front us an advance.”
“When we leaving?”
“Soon as Tanny and Mriy get back. Bell’s popping Mriy from lockup for a bar fight.”
“At least both of them are getting something out of their system,” Roddy said. “Better than dragging that shit out to the Black Ocean with us.”
Carl threw back his beer. “Helluva way to start a job. Sooner we’re off this rock the better.”
# # #
Esper slumped over the kitchen table of the common room, forcing spoonfuls of wheat puff cereal into her mouth. The room throbbed. The dim overhead lights burned like individual suns. The reconstituted milk of her cereal couldn’t wash away the dank-washcloth feel of her tongue fast enough. Even after changing into her baggy new coveralls, the dried sweat built up from sleeping in kevlex armor clung to her.
“I deserve this,” she mumbled to her cereal. This was the penance for indulging in drink, not just the physical discomfort, but the guilt of remembering the things she had said the night before.
She was nearing the end of the bowl, weighing her hunger against the sour lump her stomach had become inside her, when a thump startled her. The door to Mort’s quarters slammed shut, and the wizard stalked across the common room. Esper clenched her jaw and winced with every hammering step.
“Who are you?” Mort demanded. “What are you doing here? Did the Convocation send you?”
“Mort!” Esper exclaimed, dropping her spoon and shrinking back from the enraged wizard. She hardly recognized him.
“No, that’s me,” he replied with a curt shake of his head. “I won’t fall prey to such juvenile misdirection. Now tell me …” Mort squinted and rubbed his eyes. “Wait. I know you …”
“Esper.”
His face relaxed. “Oh yes. Yes. We have an Esper now, don’t we? You look different somehow.”
Esper flicked the disheveled snarl
of braids on her head. “New hairstyle. New clothes. Same me.”
Mort hunched down to put his face level with Esper’s. “No, that’s not it. You’re hung over.”
“I’m trying not to be,” Esper said. “But it’s God’s way of punishing my sins from last night.”
“Naw,” Mort replied. “It’s the alcohol making your head pulsate and your eyes burn from the light. The guilt is His punishment. You ought to get some coffee in you. Tanny’d tell you lots of water. Roddy’d tell you beer, but I convinced Carl of the wonders of a good cuppa, and it’ll help you, too.”
Mort prepared a mug of hot coffee for her. Once he had filled it with water from the reclaim spigot, that was the last technology he used. The water boiled of its own accord, and after pouring in an eyeballed helping of freeze-dried coffee crystals, the mixture spun itself until stirred. The wizard handed her the steaming cup.
Esper chuckled weakly as she accepted the drink. “Thanks. That’s just amazing how you do that.”
Mort took another mug for himself. “What’s amazing is that I hurled us so deep into the astral plane last night that if we broke down no one would ever find us, a feat I doubt ten wizards in the Convocation could manage, yet you’re impressed by some handmade coffee.”
“Sorry,” Esper replied. “I wasn’t awake for that.”
“You ought to have been. I was brilliant.”
Esper smiled.
“You see? Coffee’s already doing its work. Thanks for taking care of Tanny last night, by the way.”
“Taking care of her?” Esper asked, sipping her piping hot coffee. “I let her drag me around, boss me around, and ditch me at a bar.”
“Took one of the team,” Mort replied. “Just what she needed.”
“Wasn’t me,” Esper replied. “She met some guy at Fuego de la Noche, and they scooted off to … well, you know.”
“Worked a charm, by my reckoning. Magic all its own. You don’t have to put up with getting bossed around though. Next time you’re out, you ditch her. Got it?”
“Was Mriy okay? Carl mentioned something about a fight.”
“Nothing she can’t brag about, now that it’s over.”