Darkship Thieves

by Sarah A. Hoyt

  This earned me a real smile, with a dimple, "Don't they? And what did Kit lecture you about? Music?"

  "And history and literature and, occasionally, science."

  She grinned. "He must be expanding his horizons. He usually limits his obsessions to music. I'm sure he'll be taking you to the music center as soon as he can convince you to go."

  I wasn't sure of anything of the kind. I wasn't sure he would want to spend any time at all with me. For that matter I was fairly sure I wouldn't spend more time with him than strictly necessary save for one thing—he was the only person I knew in this world.

  Kath left, as if perfectly happy with our exchange, and I finished washing and drying. The clothes on the bed ranged all the way from Earth-retro to things I wasn't absolutely sure how one would put on.

  I picked a dark red, tailored dress with a long, fluid skirt. After I discovered a brush and combed my hair back, I looked all right in the mirror in the corner. I couldn't find shoes, but then I realized that everyone else I'd seen in the house had been running around barefoot.

  Stepping out of the room, I wondered where dinner would be and how to find the room. I needn't have worried. Kit was waiting for me in the hallway. He gave me one of his odd, almost frankly approving looks and condescended in smiling. "I take it Kath visited."

  I nodded. He smiled. "Dinner is fairly informal, but . . . my sister vibros clothes much better than I do."

  I nodded again and followed him down the hallway, then another and around a series of turns until we emerged into yet another pseudo-garden room, this one with people reclining in a group near the center. I recognized Kath, and the dark-haired man next to her looked like the man next to her in the family group photograph. Eber, I gathered. Also, Kit's father was reclining near them, as was a tall young man at that age when boys stop growing but have yet to fill in anything resembling adult muscles. He looked like Kit's father, and had cat eyes. The young man greeted us with an enthusiastic shout, "Uncle Kit!"

  Kit did a theatrical double-take. "Waldron, child. Your mother hasn't killed you yet? What saintly forbearance."

  The young man grinned, and must have taken this as normal affectionate family banter, because he answered with, "I am taking my cat exams this week."

  "Ooh. Growing up, then. Will your mother let you drive a flyer once the Energy Board clears you?"

  Waldron frowned. "I asked Jenny to marry me . . . We could get an assignment to fly next week."

  Kit frowned. "So early?" He looked perturbed, then took himself in hand and visibly forced a smile. "She said yes? Poor girl." As he talked he sat down. No one introduced me to Waldron, whoever he might be—I presumed he was one of Kit's nephews, but I had no idea by which sister. A group of children younger than him were sitting some distance apart, talking and giggling.

  Little robotic servers that looked like metallic turtles bearing trays came bouncing towards us over the hills, somehow maintaining their cargo safely.

  They first brought us plates, then brought a variety of foods. The second wave of bots had a hollowed carapace and little pseudo arms with spoons at the end, from which they filled the plates. They understood yes, no, more and stop. I was fascinated. On Earth all this was done by humans.

  No one noticed my interest as the bots served something that seemed like couscous in a curry sauce and then fish. Instead they talked. I noticed that no one asked about me, or how Kit had come by me. Surely this must be some form of politeness, or perhaps they knew everything from a call from the center.

  Instead they discussed pod runs. The best ones, the worst ones, and the odd trouble with the Cathouse when it rolled. Here I was mentioned for the first time, and I had to be grateful that Kit didn't choose to tell them that I'd tried to kill him. I wondered what they would do. As it was, they looked at me, intently. "She repaired the nodes?" Kath asked. "Without training?"

  "She says she has a natural ability with machines," he said. His look from under his half-lowered eyelids told me not to tell them anything about our mind-talk. It was just as well. I had no intention of doing so. It hadn't happened again except for the brief moment on landing, and I had no intention of letting it. The strange sensation of another in my mind, of thoughts not-mine forming in my brain made me squirm just remembering it.

  "Oh, good," Kath said. "There's always jobs for mechanics. I know they are looking for some at the Center, for the refitting and checking of ships before they go back out." She smiled at me. "It's well paid too."

  "I don't even know how much things cost here," I said numbly. Inside my head, I was protesting that I wasn't staying here. Not for a minute. I wanted to go back to Earth. I had responsibilities.

  But the fact was that until I could find my feet and figure this place out, I couldn't do anything. I was effectively a prisoner.

  "Oh, that's all right," Kath said. "I'm sure you can live here until you figure Eden out."

  Her father made an encouraging sound and smiled at me, a smile of real welcome. I felt my stomach clench, but I told myself it truly was for the best. Yes, staying here made me more of a prisoner, but I must stay here until I got my bearings.

  "She has to stay at least until I take the next run," Kit said. "The only way they'd let her out of the center was for me to sign for her as my ward. I'm responsible for her."

  Silverware clattered. Without looking up, I knew that it was Eber who had dropped it. He'd spoken very little, but he now said, "Kit, why?"

  "Well, she doesn't know the rules and is the only one in Eden, except Doc Bartolomeu, who has no kin. Not one entitled to demand for blood geld," he said. "What else could I do? Otherwise they were going to detain her or something."

  I looked up then, and saw the whole family looking aghast at Kit. This must have made him feel as good as it was making me feel, because he said, in a forced tone, "Anne went out early, didn't she?"

  Kath let out breath with a hiss and said something under her breath.

  "Beg your pardon?" Kit said.

  She repeated it. It was a foreign word with the feel of ancient Spanish and it must have been a swear word. The word after that was Klaavil.

  "Kath . . ." Kit said. "Joseph—"

  "Joseph is all over the Center, telling everyone you killed his sister," Kath said. "Oh, no one tells it to me, but they know Anne is more polite than I am, and she hears it all. Your . . . ancestry is brought up." She shrugged. "Anne couldn't take it. She and Bruno went out early. Eber and I were thinking of going out next week too. We just stayed till Waldron takes his exams."

  "I see," Kit said. He said it with the sort of finality that one expected of a door closing. A muscle worked by his lips, pulling at them in a spasmodic tic.

  "You could . . . pay blood geld," Eber said, looking towards the area where the children had stopped eating and were playing, in one big, noisy gaggle.

  "I've tried."

  This seemed to surprise his family. His father looked up in turn. "You have?"

  "Yes."

  "You never told us," Kath said.

  "No reason to tell you. Oh, I didn't want to. It's an admission of guilt and I'm not guilty of it, not in fact, even if I am in . . ." He clicked his tongue and stopped, then resumed, his voice very calm again. "Even if I might be in circumstances. But I'm not so proud that I'd put my family through this or risk . . . talk. I offered to pay."

  "And they wouldn't take it?" his father asked.

  Kit shook his head. "Joseph wants a duel. He wants a chance to kill me."

  "But . . ."

  "Impossible, yes. The only way I'd not defend myself, and possibly kill him, is if I'm asleep or tied down. I've not completely defeated my will to live. It might come."

  His family traded looks and then stared at me. I wasn't at all sure what they expected of me.

  Kit got up, leaving his still-full plate to be picked up by the turtles, then walked out of the room. He left me lost, sitting with his family, completely dumbfounded by the significant looks they gave m
e. What were they trying to tell me? That Kit needed my help? How was I supposed to help him? And why? All right, so he'd saved my life, but he'd also kidnapped me. And besides, we were somewhere between friendly acquaintances and total strangers. What could I do for him, even if I wanted to? I, who was a stranger here.

  On the other hand, I thought, perhaps that wasn't it at all. Perhaps it was that he was dangerous. What had he said? That he had helped kill his wife through circumstances. What circumstances? What did he mean? There was a fact that if you pushed someone out the door in a spaceship you could kill them without physically wounding them. Was that what he meant?

  I remembered his backing me into a corner, looking dangerous, murderous. If the Cathouse hadn't rolled then, would he have pushed me against the wall too hard? Would he have killed me?

  Kath was saying something to her father about, "Partly it's his temper, you know that. He gets his back up and then—"

  "He can't help it," his father said. "And there's—"

  He didn't say anything else, before—seemingly noticing that I wasn't eating—offering to take me to my room.

  In the room, I hung up my borrowed clothes and then I undressed and got into bed. I lay awake I don't know how many hours. Despite some things I couldn't understand—such as what Kath meant by speaking of Kit's ancestry because wouldn't it be hers, too?—it was clear to me that his family's intent looks meant in fact that they were afraid he'd kill me, as he'd killed his wife.

  What they didn't know is that I had no intention of allowing it. I'd get out of here as soon as possible, and keep my relationship with Kit Klaavil as casual as I could and, if possible, always see him with other people around me.

  In the end I fell asleep. And in the morning, Kath Denovo took me to the Energy Board Center, where I got a job inspecting and repairing collector ships.

  Eighteen

  Yeah, Kit had lied when he'd said I'd repaired the Cathouse on my own. But then over the time of the trip, I had gotten acquainted with the tech. The manual for the ship—electronic, erasable should the ship be captured—was one of the few things aboard I could read without being quizzed on it by Kit.

  And besides, machines are to me as music or ballet are to other people. It's like another sense. I can feel how machines are supposed to work. I can nudge them towards their perfect state. It's not something I think about—just like you don't think about breathing. It's just something I do, once I minimally understand the basics.

  I got a job inspecting the darkships, which in most cases were working perfectly and needed no help. Also, the cargo ships to Thule, which needed very little help as well. I started realizing just how much of a wreck the Cathouse was, an old training ship, flying on outdated technology.

  I did not encourage talk, though I swear every maintenance person in that center came to see me and talk to me. I thought it was just that they had never met anyone from Earth. After a while I realized that wasn't all. There was also morbid curiosity about Kit Klaavil and exactly what had happened between him and his late wife.

  To make things worse, Kit had taken to picking me up after work. To be honest I think it was just that he took his responsibilities as my guardian seriously. What he was afraid I would do after working ten hours repairing, fixing or lubing engines, I have absolutely no idea. But I would come off of the work area when quitting time arrived, and find him standing there, wearing one of his eye-searing outfits—which I'd learned were normal for cats, because their vision made them see every color more muted—with his hands deep in the pockets of some pair of loose pants, waiting for me.

  Most of the time he didn't even talk to me, just waited till I changed out of my coveralls and then took me home. Home was very quiet just now, since Kath and Eber had kept their word and gone on an early run. Leaving me with Kit and his father, who seemed to speak in monosyllables when at all. There was—I gathered—an intimation that Joseph had tried something against Kit again.

  Neither told me what. But Kit's father alluded to it, and Kit shrugged and said he'd never been in any danger.

  The second week he took me to a concert at the music center, a performance of Liszt. It was done with real, live instruments, and it could easily rival any of the performances on Earth. People dressed up for it too, the men in dark tunic-and-jacket-and-tailored pants, the women in dresses. I wore the red dress I'd worn the first dinner with the Denovos.

  No one approached us even at intermission, and I realized the bubble of solitude that Kit moved in. I realized I was unable to refuse his other invitations. Not that they came often, and they were mostly music-related. Other than home, he seemed to live at the music center.

  I discovered other things about him, such as that he played the violin, though I'd never seen him do it in the Cathouse and he didn't do it at home—or at least not in front of anyone. But his father said he played it and used to play with the orchestra at the music center—all of the musicians were amateurs, with other employment. He'd stopped because it made other players uncomfortable. The reason it made them uncomfortable was never mentioned, but I understood. As a rule, people don't play well, thinking they have a murderer in their midst.

  It turned out his room was right next door to mine and sometimes late at night I'd hear snatches of music drifting in through the doorless entrance tunnel—curling, twisting scraps of sound like something or someone crying musically.

  I didn't ask. I just wanted to work at my job, learn the strange rules of this place—which seemed to be mostly based on a complex form of codified tit for tat—and become a free woman after which . . .

  My imagination failed at this point, but there were many things I could do after this. Such as, for instance, stealing one of the newer ships and making it to Earth. I didn't want to hear, and I didn't want to know anything about Kit Klaavil. But as I said, it was almost impossible to avoid the people who wanted to tell me.

  One of them was Darla, a blonde girl who reminded me of a mid-twentieth century cartoon, probably because she wore her short hair in mannered curls, painted her lips into a cupid's bow and unnaturally darkened her eyelashes and the way her work suit was tailored to emphasize her breasts and her tiny waist. None of which should be taken to mean she did anything inappropriate or that she was in any way bad at her job. As far as I could tell she was very good at her job. And frankly her manner of dressing had at least the advantage of being charmingly retro. People could come to work in anything or nothing at all, and though the use of work suits was strongly encouraged for safety and identification reasons, we had at least two gentlemen and a lady who worked stark naked. Or rather, stark naked with a tool belt. No one seemed to care, and I wasn't stupid enough to mention it.

  But Darla was—besides a good mechanic—the designated local gossip. I never got along with women. Probably comes from the fact that my breasts came in at eight and that I had what could be called a womanly figure long before anyone else in my age group. The other thing of course was that my mother had left when I was very young. And that there weren't many women among the children of Patricians. All of which amounted to the fact that most of the women I knew or met at boarding houses or reformatories were not predisposed to like me, and they were my social inferiors, which always caused some grit in the social machinery.

  But Darla was friendly like a kitten is friendly. Friendly for her own sake, not caring on whom her bouncy interest and babbling conversation was bestowed. She started talking to me about simple things, coming by to check how my work was going, offering a hand here and locating a difficult-to-find piece there.

  And then about three weeks after I'd started working there, we were going over a Thule collector ship together and she came right out into the subject she'd skirted many times before. "So, Kit Klaavil," she said, sitting back on her heels, as she pulled the lid off the panel that controlled air purification and looked at the entrails, comparing them to a diagram. "Are you two an item?"

  "What?" I said.

  "Well, yo
u know," she said, as she took tweezerlike tools to the strange bio-wires inside. "Are you friends, bundling, or going to get married eventually?"

  "Uh," I said. I wanted to ask what business it was of hers, but it hit me that if I said that then it would be all over the center by the next day that Kit and I were indeed bundling, an idiom whose meaning I could guess all too well. And it wasn't even that I had a reputation or cared for it, but I could imagine half of these people waiting for me to be found dead or something. Better answer Darla's questions now, as much as possible, and maybe avoid having quite so much curious prying into my life. "We're acquaintances," I said.

  "Oh, come on," she said. "You're staying at his family compound and he's taking you places. And he signed for you. As his ward."

  I shrugged. "He felt responsible for me, I guess. He gave me asylum when I was escaping from some trouble in the powertree ring."

  She gave me an appraising glance, as if she was dying to ask me about Earth but knew that would be pushing too far, then sighed. "His wife was very nice, you know. So sad."

  I didn't say anything. I'd started taking apart the navigation system. The cat who piloted the ship had complained that it pulled right. Only by millimeters, but enough that it could cost them their lives in a tight spot.

  "They say he spaced her," she said. "Just, you know, got her to go out to fix something on the outside of the ship, and then didn't let her back in. He never brought the body back. He says she committed suicide, but you know, with the training and all, everyone knows everyone, and Kit Klaavil has a foul temper. He used to get in fights all the time when he was young. More fool of Jane Klaavil to marry him, I say. But she was the first in her family to be ELFed and I guess her people didn't know any better."

  I continued not saying anything and went on with my work, but in my mind was that moment I'd been out of the airlock, on the skin of the ship, and felt like Kit would not open the airlock for me. Had it been like that? Had she stepped out and screamed in his mind and he refused to let her in? I thought of him glaring ahead, when his family tried to discuss things with him. I thought of him as he pinned me to the wall of the cat chamber after I tried to garrotte him.