Then the real welding started, which Momma wouldn’t let Lizzie do because the torches could burn through the sleeve of an EVAC suit.
Next, they filled the chambers with cheap test helium to see whether there was any leakage, which of course there was, leading to tedious sealant application. And then there was the big danger when they closed down the station for a day; they air-locked off the rest of the station, broke the vacuum-seal on the new rooms, then carefully opened up the old rooms one by one until they were sure the bond would hold and they wouldn’t lose any expensive oxygen. Lizzie’s ears popped until they pumped in enough fresh O2 to regain equilibrium.
Lizzie was exhausted, because it wasn’t like her other chores had stopped. She still had to greet the incoming guests and fill the sauerkraut vats and serve meals. At one point Lizzie fell asleep on the counter, right in the middle of serving dinner. She woke to find Momma, smiling as if she hadn’t just put in a twenty-hour day, handing plates of thawed bratwurst to grateful travelers . . . And Lizzie felt shamed for being so weak, even though Momma never mentioned it, that she worked triple-shifts.
When that was done, they had to prime the hydroponics—filling the circulation system with nutrient water, lining the trays with diahydro grit, planting the seedlets. They even installed locks, which was weird; the old chamber never had locks.
On the day of the new hydroponics opening, Lizzie was thrilled to find that Momma had splurged for a sugar-cake. Everyone wore the celebration hats from storage, and Momma gave Lizzie some wonderful news: Lizzie was in charge of all the hydroponics.
“You grew those cabbages better than I could,” Momma said proudly. “You got your Daddy’s native thumb.” That made Lizzie beam with pride, and she stayed up after shutdown cycle tending to the tender shoots of soybeans and oxyvines.
When she harvested her first ear of corn, she went to the observation deck and duct-taped it to the window so Daddy would see it on his next orbit.
Yet every day, she wondered what Themba was doing. She asked Momma about sending him a text, but Momma said intra-planet textbursts were expensive. All their money was tied up in the new hydroponics, anyway.
That was when the Gineer arrived.
Lizzie went to greet the incoming customers, but when the airlocks cycled, it didn’t smell of BO and pot; it stank of ozone and WD-40. She started to say, “Welcome to Sauerkraut Station, the homiest place in the stars,” like always, but as she did there was a “HUP!” from the inside and ten soldiers came tramping out in a neat line.
It was almost like a dance, the way they came out; each soldier had the same bulging foreheads of Themba’s escorts, a sure sign of vat-grown folks. And like Themba’s escorts, they wore reflective jet-blue uniforms with plastic gold piping on the shoulders, though these uniforms had a dullness to them; some of them had tiny, ragged holes.
Unlike Themba’s escorts, they clasped black needlers. They fanned out before the airlock in a triangle pattern, and when their eyes moved the tip of their rifles followed their gaze, ready to spray death at whatever they saw. Lizzie trembled as those rifle-barrels swept across her, but she locked her knees, determined not to show disrespect to a paying guest.
When they were done, they yelled “CLEAR!” The commander came striding out of the back, as calm as her troops were nervous. She was flat-foreheaded, tight-skinned as a drum, with a long rope of braided red hair tied neatly around her waist. Her suit was spotless, which could have meant she’d never seen combat, but to Lizzie that seemed unthinkable; she was thin, sharp, attendant.
The commander bowed deeply, palms touching.
“Hold no fear, little one,” said the commander. “Your reinforcements have arrived, free of charge and ready to sacrifice health for safety. Would you escort me to your mother, Elizabeth, so I might formally inform her of the transfer?”
Lizzie matched the commander’s stern politeness. But when Lizzie ushered the commander into the comm room, Momma stiffened. She stood up to her full height to greet the commander—though the top of her head barely reached the commander’s neck.
“I thank you for your assistance, commander,” Momma said. “But I also regret to tell you that we shan’t need it.”
“I think you’ll find that you will have great need of our aid in the months to come. I have tales of the depredations the Intraconnected Web have inflicted upon defenseless locales. But could I share these cautionary warnings in private, without . . . ?” And the commander jerked her chin towards Lizzie.
“My daughter is my tertiary command structure, and is privy to all conversations,” Momma snapped back, which surprised Lizzie. “And while I appreciate what you’re trying to do, it’ll only tear us apart.”
“You know war’s been declared, Mrs. Denahue,” said the commander. “You chose your position well; you’re one of three stations that stand between the Gineer empire and the Trifold Manifest. That’s been beneficial for tourism, but when war comes—well, do you really think the Intraconnected Web will respect your home-grown capitalism?”
“Actually, it was my great-gramma chose the location,” Momma said tightly. “And you know we support the Gineer. But if you surround us with gunships, then you make us not a waypoint, but a target. The Web might respect our neutrality, they might not, but they sure as hell will shoot if you contest us. You might win that battle, but we’ll lose everything.”
“We have a new line of ships specially designed to defend stations such as this,” the commander said. “And if something happens, we’ll reimburse you for any combat losses . . .”
Momma barked out a laugh. “And then we’ll be known as a Gineer station, and be drawn into every war after that. No offense, commander, but you think short-term. My family’s been here for five generations; I want it here for five more. I’m not getting drawn in.”
The commander pursed her lips. “And if we decide to garrison this station?”
Lizzie didn’t know what garrisoning meant, but the intent was clear enough Lizzie froze. But Momma simply looked sad, like she did when they caught customers trying to hack free time from the VDR machines.
“It’s that desperate?” she asked. “This soon?”
“We’re confident in our chances. But it would help to take this place.”
Momma eased her hand down into her pocket, gripping something.
“My faith is in the Gineer,” she said. “But my hand is always on the self-destruct switch.”
The commander frowned, pulling new creases into pristine skin.
“Look,” Momma added quickly, thumping her left breast. “I support you folks, my heart to God. As long as you don’t go bandying it about, I’ll give you folks six percent off of any refueling costs I have, to give you an edge on that Web menace.”
“Twenty.”
“Twenty’s a lot in wartime. We could—Elizabeth, would you mind fetching the commander some sauerkraut?”
The negotiations took several hours. Momma called Gemma up to help set the terms, leaving Lizzie to serve hot dogs and kraut to the soldiers. But the soldiers didn’t relax; they ate like they expected someone to snatch it away from them at any moment, then asked for seconds.
By the time they took off, everyone was exhausted. Momma still took the time to comb Lizzie’s hair.
“I hate them,” Lizzie said. “They’re mean.”
“Who?” Momma asked, surprised. “The Gineer?”
“They were mean to you, and mean to Themba. They tried to take our home.”
“Actually, sweetie, I meant it when I said the Web are bad news. Themba’s people are no better . . .”
“Themba wouldn’t try to rule our station.”
Momma shrugged. “We don’t choose allies,” she said. “That’s how we weather storms. Some day you’ll understand.”
Still, Lizzie felt her hatred of the Gineer burning in her. They were cruel, cruel people, and suddenly she feared for Themba.
* * *
Over the next few weeks, tra
ffic picked up and ships docked every day, carrying harried-looking people away from the upcoming war. Momma had to start rationing fuel.
Predictably, the Gineer started shouting when Momma said she could only spare enough fissionable material to get them to Swayback Station, a mere five systems over. And when they stopped shouting they started begging, thrusting handfuls of cash at Momma, certain that everything was for sale. But Momma couldn’t afford to stock up too heavily on any one currency.
The Web folks were disappointed, but took the news with a grim resignation. They were used to shortages.
Web or Gineer, though, every guest was desperate for food—especially when Lizzie explained that sauerkraut didn’t go bad. They bought huge jars, so Lizzie had to stay up late at night chopping more cabbage.
But the Web folks seemed disheartened at having to spend money for food; they’d sigh, their pockmarked faces faded to a pale, overmilked coffee color thanks to weeks locked inside darkened ships.
“The Intraconnected used to provide for its citizens,” they said, gesturing to their families huddled miserably behind them. “I’m a stamp-press mechanic, not a soldier! They tried to make me switch tasks. They said my children would be provided for in the unlikely event of my sacrifice—but I couldn’t. I couldn’t risk it . . .”
They were so polite, so peaceful, so like Themba, that Lizzie gave them extra dollops of sauerkraut.
The Gineer were pushier. Their smooth faces were plastered with makeup, men and women alike, pancaking their cheeks to hide the blemishes that had cropped up once they couldn’t get their weekly gene-treatments. Lizzie didn’t see anything wrong with a pimple, but tell that to the Gineer. They held up suitcases packed with useless stuff—gameboxes and electric hair-curlers—and lamented that this was all they could carry.
Yet in their suitcases they carried photos of their families. They were eager to tell Lizzie stories about the beautiful house they’d saved for, the beloved husband they’d negotiated so cleverly for to get their marriage authorization. They stroked the pictures with their fingers when they talked about the past, as if they were rubbing a genie’s lamp for a wish—and then told Lizzie how the house had been bombed to splinters, the husband crunched under rubble.
Lizzie tried to tell herself that the Gineer had it coming. But then she imagined losing her home, seeing her Momma dead, and her anger dissolved into pity.
“You can’t listen to their stories, Lizzie,” said Momma. “It takes too much time. We need to get them out of the station as soon as possible.”
Then there were the soldiers. Whether they were Web or Gineer, they were all lean-limbed, clean-cut, eager; they each told Lizzie how the other side had started it, and they pumped their fists at the idea of dispensing proper justice.
Lizzie bit her lip when the Gineer soldiers trash-talked the Web. Smart-mouthing was bad for business.
After a few months, a sour-looking Gineer with a bushy white mustache limped out of the airlock. His patched white suit hung in unflattering rags off his stick-thin frame. He chomped at a ganja cigar with malice, his wrinkled cheeks pulling in and out like a pump.
He sniffed the air and scowled.
“Smells like ass in here,” he said.
“I’ve lived here all my life,” Lizzie shot back, forgetting to be polite. “And if there was a smell, I would have noticed.”
The man chuckled, bemused; it set Lizzie’s hackles on edge. “You vacuum rats are so superbly cute,” he said, ruffling her hair. “I’m Doc Ventrager. You must be my apprentice, Elizabeth. Inform your Momma of my presence, and update her that I shan’t physic anyone in this sauerkraut fart of a place until I get a fresh deodorizer in my quarters.”
Momma was slumped over her comm unit, half asleep. “That’s right,” she said, gulping a cup of tea. “I forgot he was arriving. It’s time you learned medicine, Lizzie; in these times, it’s good to have a sawbones handy. From now on, your spare time will be spent with Doc Ventrager.”
Lizzie nearly suffocated from the unfairness of it all. “But I was supposed to learn how to fly!”
“Circumstances have changed, and so must you, Elizabeth. Instead of paying us rent, the doc is earning his keep teaching you to set bones—and you’ll both do good business here, sadly enough. Now show him to the medbay.”
Though Lizzie had dutifully run their syscheck routines once a month, she had no idea what all of the headsets and plastic wands in the medbay actually did—but judging from the harrumphing noises Doc Ventrager made as he picked them up and slapped them back down, he wasn’t impressed. Momma stood behind him anxiously, chewing her lip. The Doc had Lizzie unlock the doors to the medicine cabinet, then peered in at the neat rows of antibiotics, opiates, and sutures.
“Well, at least that’s well-stocked,” he said.
“My great-grandma installed all this herself, after the pirates came,” Lizzie protested. “It all works.”
He flicked ash on the floor. “Thank the stars that despite their predilection for genegineering, the Gineer haven’t altered the core organs of the human body in the past century.” He turned to Momma. “Install that deodorizer and give me a free hand over pricing, and I’ll educate your offspring with these antiques.”
“Sold,” said Momma. Lizzie said nothing. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be under Doc Ventrager’s tutelage.
As it turned out, Doc Ventrager had brought his own equipment, and he expected Lizzie to carry it all for him. He pointed out where the leather satchels and tanks should go as Lizzie struggled under their weight. As she ferried them out from the ship, Doc Ventrager seemed to sum up everything that was wrong about Gineer folks—even if Ventrager’s pockmarked face meant he wasn’t exactly a normal Gineer.
The next morning, she checked the hydroponics and then went to the medlab. “Right,” the Doc said. He pointed to a tank, where child-sized things with gray, wrinkled flesh floated in a stinking green fluid. “Let’s see what you’re made of. Fish one out, deposit it ’pon the table.”
They were so small that at first Lizzie thought they were children—and then she realized their ears and noses were funny. Lizzie ran her palm across the stiffened flesh, feeling its hard, horned hands, its antenna-like ears, the little snippet of flesh on its butt that looked like a leftover from a bad vacuu-forming job.
“What are these?” she asked.
“Pigs,” said the Doc. “A lot cheaper than anatomy clones, that’s for damn sure.”
She frowned. “I thought you were supposed to teach me about humans.”
“Pig bones and organs are close enough to hum-spec for the rudiments of injury repair,” the Doc said, absent-mindedly cleaning a sharp knife on his gown. “You know how to stitch a wound? To set a bone?”
“No.”
He handed her the knife. “Time you learned. Now cut.”
* * *
Doc Ventrager was a hard but efficient taskmaster; Lizzie learned that he’d spent years training girls and boys at stations all around the ’verse.
“You’re damn lucky,” he said, after a long day treating simulated decompression injuries. “Most kids have to learn this all in theory. They can’t call me when someone’s EVA suit rips; it’d take three weeks to get there. So their first major field operation is on their dying Momma—holding her down while she’s thrashing, shrieking, soaked crimson in blood . . .”
Lizzie sensed the test buried in the Doc’s words; he was trying to frighten her with thoughts of her Momma. She said nothing.
The Doc nodded and took a long drag off of his reefer cigarette, blowing the sweet smoke into the room to overwhelm the “gangrenous reek” he smelled.
“But you, missy,” he said, tipping his cigar at her, “Will acquire a chance to watch the real show. By the time this conflict’s ebbed its course, you shall be qualified to teach.”
She found out what he meant when the first Gineer warship arrived, one engine nearly shot to splinters.
Gemma immediately started wor
king up an repair estimate, but the sergeant was more interested in cornering Doc. “We received some specially withering fire in a rear-guard action,” he explained. “We had to escape before resupplying, and so several soldiers have severe infections. What’s the charge to cleanse gangrene?”
“Allow me a gander,” the Doc said, looking satisfied for the first time since Lizzie had known him. Doc walked, preening, into the ship, but Lizzie almost threw up from the smell.
Twenty soldiers rested on pallets against the wall, most with broken limbs that had healed in horrid ways. They bit down on pieces of plastic, trying not to shriek; the last of the painkillers had been used up weeks ago.
“Oh, that’s a fine mess,” the Doc said, rubbing his hands together. “The quote is one-ninety per head.”
“One-ninety?” the sergeant said. “That’s three times normal rate.”
“You possess superior alternatives?” the Doc said. “No. You do not. You can sew ’em up now and have ’em heal en route to the next battle . . . or you can keep your funds walleted and remove them from your roster. Either way’s acceptable to me.”
“One-ninety’s blackmail.”
“Excuse me,” Lizzie said politely, ostensibly to Doc Ventrager but speaking loud enough that the sergeant could overhear her, “Don’t forget that Momma said the Gineer get eight percent off at Sauerkraut Station.”
“I never heard of that. Even if I had, it wouldn’t apply to me.”
“You’re on the station, aren’t you?”
“Goddammit,” he said. “I will speak with your Momma.” But didn’t; instead, he went down to one-seventy. Lizzie felt a malicious price at seeing the Doc’s greed quashed.
And she felt pride when she cleaned her first batch of wounds. Though she’d drained pus on the dead pigs, Lizzie hadn’t been sure how she’d take to it once she was working on live men. Judging from the sergeant’s pleased reactions, she did a fine job.
The Doc grumbled at having to work for such low rates, snarling at everyone like their injuries were their own damn fault. “You went to war,” he snapped. Lizzie, on the other hand, tried to be nicer, even if they were stupid, Themba-hating soldiers.
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