by J. S. Morin
Esper pursed her lips and frowned. “I’m not sure how much I can do about that. We might have a spare rug or blanket around somewhere that we can use as additional soundproofing. I’ll see what I can—”
“Was there?”
“Was there what?”
“A wild animal.”
Esper gave a nervous chuckle. “No, Kubu’s domesticated … sort of. I mean, we don’t know what he is, exactly, but he is very dog-like. And usually he’s pretty friendly, but we cooped him up too long while you were settling in, and he got rowdy.” It wasn’t the whole story, Esper knew, but it was as much as Tanny had been willing to share on short notice.
Bryce nodded along like someone who was hearing information but failing to absorb it. “Rowdy …”
Esper nodded exuberantly. “All taken care of. Poor little guy’s sleeping it off—erm, behind a locked door.”
Bryce swallowed and licked dry lips. “You guys got any food aboard? I was getting a bit between meals when we tucked our tails back on Drei.”
It was a subject that was guaranteed to come up sooner or later, but Esper had been hoping it would have leaned toward the later end—when someone else might be around to answer. “Sort of. That is … I mean … don’t worry, none of us are going to starve or anything like that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Something happen to your supplies?”
“Kubu … I mean. Yes. But don’t worry.”
“Listen,” Bryce said. “You’ve got food or you don’t. What’s to eat around here?”
“We’ve got sandwich bread we pried out of the food processor along with a dozen centimeters of salami, some salsa dip, and a jar of huckleberry jam.”
“That’s it?” Bryce asked with a note of alarm in his voice.
“It’s a good-sized jar,” Esper assured him. “And don’t worry, we’re due planetside in eighteen hours or so. We’ll get some real food there.”
“Where we stopping off?”
“Freeride,” Esper replied.
“No, I mean on the way? Freeride’s weeks from here, even if this thing’s flying below military courier depths.”
“No, just about eighteen hours,” Esper said. “I think if you look out that window some more, you’ll see that the gray’s still got a tinge of purple in it. So just relax, grab yourself a jam sandwich, and we’ll have you to Freeride in no time.”
# # #
Bryce emerged from his rented quarters like a rehabilitated animal being returned to the wild. He looked poised to bolt at any moment for the relative safety of his room. The veneer of cocksure swagger he’d displayed on Drei had rubbed off to reveal a timid tech jockey underneath.
“Come on and join us,” Carl offered, beckoning him over the heads of Mort and Roddy. “Pull up a chair. The cards are analog, so they’re still working fine. We’re playing for dibs on the last bottle of anything drinkable that isn’t water.” Carl cast a sidelong glance to Roddy, who he knew kept an emergency supply of Earth’s Preferred under his bed, but didn’t see the point in mentioning that in front of Bryce.
They were gathered at the kitchen table in the common room, next to the refrigerator with its door held shut by mechanics’ tape. At the center of the table was the last bottle of Esper’s peach liquor. She had donated it to the cause of intra-ship harmony, and declined to play for it, along with Tanny who had drunk the second-to-last bottle already. Mriy was back in her quarters, exhausted after her prolonged struggle with Kubu.
“What are you playing?” Bryce asked, pulling out a chair and settling in beside Mort.
Carl pushed a pile of loose hardware in Bryce’s direction. “Poker. Five card stud. Old school as hell, to humor Mort. You know it?”
“Yeah,” Bryce mumbled, looking down at the assorted steel hardware in front of him. “What’s all this for?”
“Since we’re playing for the booze, we’re using those instead of hard-coin. Nuts are fives; washers are ones. Those broken rivet heads are twenty-five apiece.”
“Um, sure,” Bryce replied. “The girl mentioned something about sandwiches.”
Roddy reached back for a plate stacked with square-cut bread designed to feed into the loader of a food-processor. “Knock yourself out. Jam, salami, and mustard are in the freezer. I turned the reducer down to act as a fridge.”
Bryce sat out the first two hands as he made himself a sad little meal. Carl didn’t mention that the salami was three months past expiration, and that Roddy had hacked the food processor to accept later and later dates to keep it from auto-dumping it.
“Fancy grub,” Bryce muttered through a mouthful of dry bread and spoiled salami as he sat down. “Listen, Carl, you and me gotta talk. Is it true we’re less than a day out of Freeride?”
“It’s all right there in the computers,” Carl replied. “Shit, if we could make contact with anyone official, we’d probably be up for some sort of record. Fella could get used to crossing the galaxy at these speeds.”
“Don’t go getting used to it,” Mort interjected. “You’re only smug about it because you can’t wrap your science-filled head with just how close we all came to oblivion.”
“How close did we come?” Bryce asked.
Mort raised one eyebrow and squinted at Bryce with the other eye. “I’ll tell you how close, tech-boy. We came within the length of a dragon’s whisker, the breadth of a silkworm’s sigh. There was time, perhaps, for one syllable of the Cladis Grimoire to pass a fool’s lips before creation itself snuffed us like a birthday candle.”
“Oh,” Bryce said.
“Ante up,” Roddy said, tossing in two washers.
Bryce tossed two of his own into the middle of the table and cleared his throat. “So anyway … thought I’d have more time in transit, but we need to talk.”
“Can you talk and play at the same time?” Carl asked. Bryce nodded. “Then shoot.”
Roddy flicked cards around the table with casual precision. Aside from a peek at his facedown cards, Carl didn’t bother moving his from where they came to a halt. Mort tidied his cards manually, pointedly not using his magic. Bryce packed his tight and lined them up like inventory on a store shelf. Secretive. Organized. Obsessive. Carl filed the traits away in case they ever became useful.
“Well, I don’t have a job lined up when I get there,” Bryce began.
Roddy let out a quick burst of shrieking simian laughter. “Boy, you’re pumpin’ from a dry well here.”
Bryce waved a hand. “No, nothing like that. I’ve got a line on a job, see? It’s just I could use a reference. You know, some sort of good word to get a foot in the door.”
“Sure, I guess,” Carl replied with a shrug. “You didn’t get a chance to show off with the defenses at Drei, but if that had worked… Man would that have been something to see. All those defense cannons and ships with their heads spinning, chasing after phantom ships. If you’re half as good as you can promise people in desperate need without actually delivering jack shit, then you’d be a credit to anyone looking for one of whatever you actually are.”
“He’s a doorstop salesman, right?” Roddy asked. “Had a whole pack filled with samples.”
“Can it, banana-brain,” Bryce snapped, jabbing a finger in the laaku’s direction. “Ain’t my fault the A-tech I bartered for this hay-ride got wizard-twisted. I’m not asking for charity. I’ll make it worth your while.”
“How much you thinking?” Carl asked. It was about time to try pinning Bryce to a sum of terras expressed as an actual number, with digits and everything, rather than vague promises and mystery gear.
“Well, I’ve got ten grand in digital terras, but I might be able to do better in barter,” Bryce said.
“In case you hadn’t noticed,” Roddy said, “We might be in need of repairs. Repairs in a place like Freeride won’t come cheap, and they prefer hard-coin terras. Digital might get us somewhere, but chickens, or booze, or whatever shit you’re hoping to trade us better convert into a payment to a starship-grad
e garage.”
“There is that,” Carl agreed.
“What if I got your criminal records expunged?”
Carl looked to Roddy, then to Mort. Mort and Roddy exchanged a glance of their own. The same skepticism was on every face. “How exactly you planning to pull that shit off?” Carl asked.
“Same way techsters have been beating encryption for centuries: human weaknesses in the system,” Bryce said. “All the best have heartbeat ins at anyplace they want to breach. Some careless, some on the take, mostly just idiots who don’t even know they’re getting used. It’s not all strings of zeroes through fifteens in a computer core. Those are just the accessories. It’s the people who service and maintain the systems—they’re the real weakness.”
“So, who’ve you got who can alter ARGO law enforcement records galaxy-wide?” Carl asked, discarding a bum hand as the bet came his way.
“That’s my value: I know and you don’t. I send the right message from the right guy to the right guy, and some terminal data-entry drone processes the request.”
“Just like that? Won’t that look a little suspicious?”
“Please … he’ll see your record update right in between entering a court date for an assault trial and authorizing a petty cash expenditure to pay off an informant. You’re nothing special; just another box to check off before he can go grab lunch.”
“Yeah, smart guy?” Roddy asked. “If you can do all that, why do you still have a record?”
“The banana-brain’s got you on that one,” Mort said.
Bryce shrugged. “I’ve done my time. Sure, I could wipe it out, but what good’s that do me? Guy that’s been in, you know he’s made of something tougher than some pansy who might piss himself if he ever got wind of a little heat. People I’d want to work for would appreciate that.”
“What kind of people you talking?” Carl asked.
“Janice Rucker,” Bryce said.
There was a long silence. The card game stood still. “So… lemme guess. It’s not a coincidence you tracked us down for transport?” Carl asked. “You know who Tanny is.”
“Tania Louise Rucker, daughter of Donald and Sue-Ellen Rucker,” Bryce replied. “It’s sort of my business, figuring out who knows who. Nothing personal. I’d lump you in under ‘on the take’ for this job. You’re no patsy.”
“I say we airlock this weasel,” Roddy said.
Bryce knocked his chair over as he leapt to his feet and backed away. “Woah! Hear me out!”
“Go on,” Carl said with a smirk. “Roddy’s just a mean sober; don’t mind him.”
“We land. I find a terminal, work my mojo, and your records get cleared. You confirm I done my bit, and that’s my resume for Janice Rucker.”
Carl scratched at the back of his neck. “What’s Janny doing out that far? Don likes keeping business close to Mars.” It was annoying to have to find out family news from a stranger. Even if Carl was legally divorced from the family, there was no legal force strong enough to entirely remove him from The Family.
“She’s branching out, with Don Rucker’s blessing,” Bryce said. “I haven’t been able to sniff out the terms, but she’s on her own in exchange for a kickback.”
Carl turned to Mort. “See what I have to put up with? If Tanny would talk to her father, we wouldn’t have to learn this shit secondhand. We could’ve hit Janny up for work.”
“Which one was she, again?” Roddy asked. “I have trouble keeping Tanny’s cousins straight.”
“At the wedding, she was the one with the finger-bone earrings,” Mort said. “And the five-terra amulet of Kali.”
Roddy shuddered. “Ugh. That one’s bad news.”
“Most of Tanny’s family is bad news, if they don’t like you,” Carl said. “But Janice isn’t half as tough as she tries to look.”
“That’s still twice as scary as I’d want to turn my back on,” Roddy said.
Bryce returned to his seat and tossed in a small bet, though the game was quickly becoming an afterthought. “See why I want someone to smooth my intro?”
“Makes sense,” Carl admitted.
“So, think Tanny will do it?” Bryce asked. “I mean, even if she’s on the outs with her father, you’re her captain, and—”
Roddy burst out laughing, and Mort snickered. “Yeah, as if Carl could order her to do anything,” Roddy said.
“Not to mention, Janny and Tanny don’t exactly get along,” Carl said. “Nicknames sounded too much alike. Janny’s older, but Tanny’s Don’s daughter, so she was always on a bit of a pedestal. No, it’s me you want making the introduction, not Tanny.”
“You’re smooth with Janny?” Bryce asked.
“You’re the people researcher,” Carl replied. “Janice Rucker seeing anyone?”
Bryce’s brow knit for a moment, then he shook his head.
“Then I can be as smooth as I need to,” Carl said, tipping back his chair with a smug grin.
# # #
“So how do we plot a course change, if we needed to?” Esper asked from the co-pilot’s seat. She was sitting with her hands folded in her lap, pointedly not touching anything. The jacket, the coveralls, her hair in a tight bun at the back of her head; everything was just as Tanny had instructed her for getting actual work done aboard ship.
“You don’t have to pretend to be interested in this stuff,” Tanny replied. “It’s sweet that you’re worried, but I’m fine now. Thanks.” There wasn’t even a lingering pain from the blow to her head when Kubu had trampled her. The dumb brute was sleeping off his triple-dose of tranquilizer in her quarters, which had the added bonus of hiding the evidence of what he’d eaten. How could Tanny explain to Esper that the concussion was the least of her troubles.
Tanny’s stomach churned, not quite satisfied with the “meal” Esper had scrounged, and even less happy with the alcohol that had washed it down. But those were mere side-effects. The trouble was that Esper’s magic had sped her metabolism. She wouldn’t know until symptoms started manifesting, but she had burned either hours or days out of her drug regimen, and Kubu had consumed all her recent supplies. The dog-like creature had a digestive tract that a vulture would envy. Had anyone told her a seventy-kilo animal had eaten a two month supply of marine biochemicals, she’d write the creature off as a corpse. Kubu’s reaction to the drugs aside, he didn’t seem in imminent danger of death.
“I know,” Esper replied with a faint smile. It was a trick Carl used. Just agree to shut someone up, and keep on acting like neither of you said anything. “Could I try plotting a heading, and just not confirm?” She reached a finger toward the nav computer.
Tanny batted the hand away, already noticing that her own hand was jittery. “Leave it alone! At this speed, I don’t want to touch anything.” For at least the hundredth time, she glanced at the astral depth gauge. It read 30.88, with the analogue needle over the digital display pegged at maximum. Before she met Mort, Tanny had figured those gauges only went to up to ten to make ships seem faster than they really were.
“You don’t look so good.”
“Don’t you start that with me,” Tanny snapped. Esper had that patronizing look in her eye—pity and sympathy, mixed with a bit of holier-than-thou, I-told-you-so crap.
“Start what?”
“Being a priestess at me.”
Esper slumped back in her chair with a sigh. “I don’t think I could if I wanted to. I mean, look at me.” She gave a two-handed gesture up and down herself. “Who’d come to me looking for spiritual solace? I look like an outlaw spacer, because that’s what I am, now.”
“Worse things to be,” Tanny muttered. “But you still act like a priestess, sometimes. You’ve got a vibe.”
“Do I?” Esper asked. “Do I really?” She fished at her collar and drew a chain out from under her shirt. Dangling from the end was a stone in a silver setting; it was bone white except for a bit of pink toward the bottom. “Do you know what this is?”
Tanny shrugged. “A
necklace. What, did you steal it from the One Church or something?”
“No, it was a gift from my mother for my twelfth birthday. It’s magic.”
“What’s it do?”
Esper regarded the pendant a moment before answering. “It gets darker toward the end of the month. Swoosh it around in water, and it goes white again, and the water turns red. How’d my mother put it… ? ‘Keeps away cramps and boy problems.’”
“Sounds handy.”
Esper gave a delicate snort. “Handy… yeah. I gave it a workout, that’s for sure. I should have given it up when I joined the priesthood, but I couldn’t part with it. Just a little inconvenience now and then, but I’d gotten so used to it that I was scared what it might be like quitting. I was supposed to be putting my faith in the Lord, setting an example. I mean, I didn’t totally hide it, and I had to swear it was for the side benefits and not because I intended to break any vows, but sometimes it felt like an anchor around my neck.”
“So?”
“Sound familiar?”
Tanny glared at Esper. What was she getting at? The imbalance of biochemicals in her system was making it hard to concentrate. She had a constant ringing in her ears, and her eyes kept losing focus. There were few enough times when she was in the mood for riddles and innuendo, and this was certainly not among them.
“Kubu didn’t get sick eating cosmetics or foot cream,” Esper said when it became clear Tanny had no ready reply. “I must have burned something out of your system when I healed that bump you got on the head.”
“That fucking bastard,” Tanny muttered. Esper had probably confronted Carl and he must have told her. “It’s none of your business, and I don’t like you going behind my back.” Esper flinched back, and that was when Tanny realized she was not only shouting, but leaning toward the co-pilot’s chair. She settled back into the pilot’s seat and took a calming breath.
“It wasn’t Carl,” Esper said. “You’re coming down off something. You all act like I was born and raised in a convent, but my parents were broke when I was young. We lived in Neo-Rotterdam, and not even the OK part. I saw burn-outs, vapes, glass-eyes, ‘roid-mutants, tweakers, and schizoids. The school shuttle pilot had a stim addiction, but no one else would take the job, so they kept him on.”