by Bruns, David
Once I’d gotten away and felt almost safe, I took a breath and wrapped myself in the warm comfort of the Hearse. Then I noticed, on the seat next to me, my longcoat folded neatly, my fedora sitting atop it. A parting gift from Daisy.
There are fates worse than death for people like us, kid. It felt like a half-assed prayer in my head. Good on ya avoiding yours .
• • •
It was two days back to Callisto. Two long, quiet days. The books I normally lived in to pass the time read like the flat fiction they are. I missed the snark of Daisy Brace, the constant barbs about my age. She gave as good as she got. Just ask the Hearse’s would-be hijackers. Ask Elaena Kisaan.
I wondered if this was what parents felt like when a child beat them to death’s door. I decided I was just being morbid, selfishly so, and pushed those thoughts away. I had a job to do. Distractions are deadly in my profession.
I’d called ahead and secured a slip aboard Regency Station. Adriana had made that happen, of course. I avoided her desire to speak to Daisy directly. I told the regent she’d get her update shortly and that we should avoid the possibility of someone listening in. It was a slim excuse for silence given the level of security SynCorp runs on comms, but Adriana shouldn’t get the news I’d have to tell her that way. I’m not talking about the data on the micro-drive. Some things you should say to people in person. Out of respect.
With the Hearse secured, I made my way to Adriana’s office. Rabh security personnel stood guard everywhere. A few of them gave me the fisheye, but I’d already been cleared to make a beeline to the station’s core.
When I walked into her office, Adriana stood, nodding to me, then looking past. All she found was empty air before the door cut off her view. Adriana could smell the bad news on me. Did her shoulders slump an inch or two? Did her lips part in silent fear?
I gave her a moment. She cleared her throat.
“Daisy?”
I looked her straight in the eye. This is what you can’t do over comms. What you shouldn’t do.
“No.”
Adriana nodded, accepting the news. She sat down again, a bit too quickly I thought.
“She played it like a pro,” I said, speaking slowly. I knew Adriana was distracted. Hell, I was still distracted, and I’d had two days to come to terms. And Daisy and I weren’t nearly as close as she’d obviously been to Adriana.
“Of course she did,” Adriana said, her voice cracking. She cleared her throat again. “Tell me everything. ”
And so I did. In the two days’ travel back to Callisto, I’d kept the option open in my mind that Adriana might have been playing both sides after all. She’d sent Daisy to the Belt to root out the pirates, sure, but maybe the deal Elaena had mentioned had been real too. But as I detailed what had happened—Daisy’s sidling up to Elaena, her tightbeam to Admiral Galatz and the corporate fleet, her making it possible for me to bring the micro-drive back—I was convinced Adriana was playing it straight. She was still on Tony’s team.
“As far as I know, Tony’s fine,” Adriana said. “His ship docked yesterday, but he wasn’t on it—just Helena Telemachus and that new poster boy from Mars. And Tony’s kid, Junior.” She turned her mind back to the situation at hand. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Elise Kisaan is the trouble. I’ll start putting up firewalls to fence off her finances. Once the dollars dry up, the clock will start ticking on how long she can fund this little coup of hers.”
I nodded.
“Hand me the drive.”
I did. When she took it from me, she held it a moment, stroking it with her thumb. The last thing Daisy had touched. Adriana placed the drive in her terminal.
“Come around here, Eugene,” she said. Adriana Rabh is the only one I can stand calling me by my given name. It’s how she came to know me, and we’d known each other a long time, ever since the fucked-up Cassandra job. I stood and walked around to look over her shoulder.
The screen was a spreadsheet of dates, ship names, and routes along the Frater Lanes. The Company uses different routes, randomly assigned, to move materiel and resources across the system to prevent anyone getting ideas about hijacking them. The level of detail here was exhaustive: departure dates, lane assignments, last-minute route changes, how much hypercompressed gas was carried down to the milliliter… And there were dollar amounts. Not what you’d think—the value of the cargo—but what that information was worth.
“My own people have been selling them information,” Adriana said. “That fucking pisses me off.” When she gets riled, Jupiter’s regent curses like a sailor. “I mean, seriously, castrate-somebody-with-my-teeth pissed off.”
“Can we find out who?” I asked cautiously, being the only male in the room.
“See this CNP? The address has been rerouted a dozen times. But there should be artifacts in the metadata that’ll tell us where it originated.”
“Somebody paid top dollar to mask their CorpNet Protocol address.”
“They didn’t pay enough,” Adriana said. She began running her fingers over the console, injecting the drive with algorithms designed by Erkennen Labs to strip away data cloaking. I’d had no idea Adriana was so adept at the technical side of things. I felt more like a fossil than ever. I watched as, bit by bit, the algorithm reconstructed the pathing to identify the actual point of origin for the transaction.
A guttural, triplet chime indicated it had run its course.
“Sonofabitch,” Adriana said. “One of my own goddamned miners. And I bend over backward for those fuckers to pay them well, make a life here for them and their families that’s the highest standard of living in the fucking system. Ungrateful sonofabitch!”
The screen shone with the rather unremarkable name of the culprit.
“Normally, Daisy would have taken care of this for me,” Adriana said, her tone all business now. “I have others I can—”
“Allow me,” I said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “For old time’s sake.”
She nodded and reached up to touch my hand. It was the closest intimacy we’d ever shared. “Daisy died for that intel,” she said quietly, and I knew I needed to beat feet soon. Adriana wasn’t gonna hold it together much longer.
“She did,” I said, squeezing and releasing her hand. “And now it’s this asshole’s turn.” The sobbing started before the door closed behind me.
Time to find a dead man walking named Luther Birch.
Chapter 25
Edith Birch • Valhalla Station, Callisto
She didn’t stay long at the infirmary after Krys gave her the news.
Edith felt the sudden need to be alone, to camp inside her own head. To weigh the choices of a future that, just a little while earlier, had seemed bright with promise and inches from her fingertips. She wandered the Community Dome. Its narrow corridor-streets were just beginning to come back to life after the colony emergencies. Callistans were venturing from the perceived safety of their pods again.
Marshals patrolled in pairs. Rabh security personnel were posted at every major intersection connecting the districts. In the marketplace, vendors stood behind their bazaar stands vying for the attention of the colonists wandering by. Even the shopkeepers seemed distracted, still on edge as CorpNet’s Basement buzzed with speculation about recent events—theories of insurrection and coordinated sabotage and the ultimate downfall of the Syndicate Corporation, whispers of mysterious anarchists called the Soldiers of the Solar Revolution. The speech given yesterday by the Martian had calmed the community’s collective nerves a bit, but the air still felt tense, as if charged with a low-yield electricity.
Everything had changed, Edith thought as she walked. Everything . Except for her desire to leave Luther—that hadn’t changed. But now she questioned whether she should. Maybe hanging on to that dream was just being selfish. Her baby deserved a father. Wasn’t any father better than no father at all?
A passing marshal nodded in her direction. Edith offered a thin smile and nodded back.
Did she recognize him? Was he the one with the broad shoulders who’d quieted the raving miner in the infirmary? Her brain was only half-working, turning over and over the question: Wasn’t any father better than no father at all?
Krys would answer no. A bad father wasn’t better than no father.
Go, leave, and good riddance to the bastard , Krys said in her head.
Easy to say from the outside looking in. Easy to weigh the options and reason out the logical solution. But from the inside looking out—decisions had consequences. If Edith left Luther for Earth after she’d made those last few deals with Crow, he’d follow her now for sure. She’d convinced herself otherwise before, that the distance and the effort it would take to bring her back would keep Luther from bothering. He’d find someone else, someone local, and while Edith pitied that future bride-mate, she’d rationalized away any concern for the woman who’d take her place. Edith had her own problems. But now, with his child in her womb, more than ever Luther would want to hold on to her, a prized possession. He’d want to raise the Little Him right—and it would be a him , Edith was somehow sure.
The thought of Luther injecting his personality into an innocent child soured her stomach.
Or maybe that’s the baby .
Not yet. Surely, not yet.
“Edith!”
But soon the nausea would start. And the cramps and the other symptoms. She couldn’t imagine going through that alone. Having the baby alone. Raising it—him—alone. But when she pictured Luther there, it made her want to cry. Thinking about any of it made her want to cry.
Emotionalism. Another symptom? Great! In addition to everything else, now she was getting hormonal…
“Hey, Edith!”
She turned, realizing she’d wandered among the food stands. Reyansh Patel, the vendor of exotic spices from India, smiled and waved her over. The first thing she felt when she saw him wasn’t the joy of friendship but the looming specter of Luther, disapproving and jealous. His presence was there even when he wasn’t.
Reyansh insisted she come over to the booth. The last thing Edith felt like being was social. But the man had always been kind to her, even when Luther was unkind back. She dug up the smile she’d found for the marshal and approached the brightly colored scarves and fabrics decorating the booth.
“Hi, Reyansh,” she said.
“How are you today, best customer?” he asked pleasantly. “Can I interest you in something to dash in your meals? ”
“Not today,” Edith replied, though she had no idea what she’d make for Luther for dinner. Suddenly paranoid, she accessed her sceye and noted the time. She needed to get home soon. Get cooking.
“Oh come on,” Patel insisted in that pushy-with-a-velvet-glove kind of way open-air vendors master. “Business has been slow the last week. Help me out. No coriander? How about some haldi—good for the joints!”
Edith’s expression opened up. She felt she owed the man something. Today, a smile was all she had to offer.
“No, thank you,” she said.
“Say, what’s wrong? You look tired,” he said.
Reyansh’s attention, she knew, was part of the sales pitch. Make the connection, make the sale. Or maybe he was just being a friend. Friendships seemed to form easier on the frontier, a hint of we’re-all-in-this-leaky-boat-together about them.
“Oh, you know, it’s been a stressful week.”
“Hey, some good news—I heard the dome is about fixed. They’ll be pulling the testudo back soon. Natural light again! Won’t that be nice?”
That did sound nice. She was so tired of the unnatural silver of the synthetic lights.
“I suppose so,” Edith answered.
“Hey,” Patel said, reaching out to touch her left hand. Edith froze. “Is everything all right?”
It took all her restraint to not jerk away from him. She didn’t want to be touched. Always in the back of her mind was: what if Luther saw? Forcing her smile to remain, she reached her left hand out and picked up a small bag of cumin, dislodging his touch in the process .
“I think I’d like something after all,” she said. “Feels like a chili night.”
Patel nodded. “Of course.” His tone was tight, uncomfortable. He prepared a receipt and swiped her syncer for the purchase, then handed her the cumin.
“I’m sorry, Reyansh,” Edith felt obligated to say. “I’m just out of sorts.”
Patel’s expression became sympathetic. “No worries, Edith. We’ve all been out of sorts the last week. Come back anytime. Make it soon, okay?”
She nodded. “Okay.”
• • •
Luther would be home soon. Edith laid out the ingredients for the chili, organized them, and reorganized them.
Her sceye chimed. Krys was calling.
“Hi,” she said.
“How are you doing?” There was concern in Krys’s voice.
“Fine.”
Krys cocked her head but didn’t say a word.
“What? I’m…” The sobbing started somewhere deep inside Edith. In a primal place that her mind didn’t know how to control.
Krys took a deep breath but didn’t say anything. She let her friend have her space to deal with what she was feeling.
“I don’t know what to do, Krys,” Edith said at last. Her head kept shaking back and forth. She wiped her eyes. “I don’t know what to do!”
“It’s okay. We’ll figure it out,” Krys said helpfully .
We?
Edith’s thought was laced with bitterness. It was so easy from the outside to judge, to offer solutions that sounded good. What did Krystin Drake know of her problems? What consequences would there be for Krystin Drake if it all went badly with Luther?
“Edith?”
“Sorry,” Edith said, guilty at the negativity railing at Krys from inside her head. Her friend—the only real friend she had on Valhalla Station—was only trying to help.
“Have you told Luther yet?” Krys asked.
“No. He’ll be coming off shift soon.”
Krys nodded. “So how will it go?”
Edith shrugged and moved to the table to sit down. Her feet hurt. A symptom of pregnancy or just the result of having walked around half the Community Dome today?
“I honestly don’t know,” Edith said, rubbing her forehead. Was every physical ache and pain she experienced until delivery going to be the baby’s fault? “I don’t know if he’ll be happy or if he’ll…”
Her unfinished thought hung in the air, a cloud of uncertainty.
“You don’t think he’d hurt you, do you?” Krys asked. “Hurt the baby?”
Of course not, Edith wanted to say. Don’t be absurd.
But it was Luther.
There was precedent.
“Will he want the child?”
“I think so,” Edith said. Why wouldn’t he? An extension of himself, the weight of thousands of years of human genetics pushing itself forward into the future, fueling that same instinct in him. “I—I don’t know.”
Krys cleared her throat and, in a low voice, asked, “Do you?”
The obvious answer caught in Edith’s throat. Didn’t most women? Wasn’t that her gender’s existential reason for being? To create life?
“I—I don’t know.”
“Oh, Edith.” Krystin Drake paused, thinking heavy thoughts. “I suppose … I mean, you haven’t told him yet.”
“No,” Edith whispered.
“There’s always another option.”
Edith stared at her friend through their virtual link, not understanding at first. “I don’t … oh, no. No-no-no, I could never…”
Krys raised her hands. “Okay, I was just pointing out the option.”
“That’s not an option, not for me,” Edith said.
“Okay,” Krys said, “then the only other options I see are: You tell Luther and he’s a part of the baby’s life. Or you don’t and he’s not.”
Yes, that was the crux of it, wasn’t it?
“I know I should be overjoyed,” Edith said. “I should be—”
“Quit judging yourself by what you think others will think of you,” Krys said. “This is your life to live, no one else’s.”
Edith smiled at her friend. Maybe she’d been too harsh on Krys earlier. Maybe she’d just been projecting her own fears.
“I’m tired,” Edith said. The emotional maelstrom of the last twenty-four hours had put the capper on her recent stress. “I think I need a nap.”
“You deserve it,” Krys said. “I’ll chat at you tomorrow, okay? Ping me if you need anything.”
Edith offered a tired half smile. “Thanks, Krys. Thanks for being my friend.”
“Back at ya, kiddo.”
Laying her head on her arms on the table, Edith promised herself it would just be a quick catnap, the neatly organized dinner ingredients on the counter already forgotten.
• • •
“What’s all this?”
In Edith’s dream, there’d been a shuffling, like a small animal moving through underbrush. She’d been dreaming of Mississippi and playing in the woods. When she opened her eyes, she realized the noise was Luther moving stuff around on the counter next to the stove.
“You’ve been back to the market, I see,” he said. His voice was quiet, establishing a fact. Turning to face her, Luther held up the small bag of cumin.
Edith came instantly awake. “Yes,” she said. Her cheeks felt like they’d split open if she smiled any wider. “I thought I’d make chili tonight.”
Luther grunted, swinging the cumin like a hypnotist dangling a watch. “A little late for that, wouldn’t you say?”
The chrono showed 6:30.
Oh, no .
“I don’t ask for much, Edith,” Luther began.
Damn it! Why did you have to fall asleep?
The baby? Blame it on the baby.
He cupped the bag in his hand and gave it a sniff .
“I provide for you. I work really hard. All I ask is a little support on the home front, you know?”
“I know, Luther, I’m sorry. It’s just that—”
“And yet you’d rather visit Dark Meat in the market than have my dinner ready.”