by Sarina Dorie
I looked to Sumiko. “Is it true? Did I marry him?”
“Agreeing to marry someone is the not the same as actually doing so.” She crossed her arms and went over to my dresser.
Meriwether took my hand in his. “Faith, my love, why would you think you were married to this pirate?”
“He told me I met him on Aynu-Mosir, only I had no such memory of meeting him because he took my memories for my safety.”
Meriwether circled his arms around me. “Don’t believe a word he says. Lies slip off his tongue more easily than the truth. I’ve fallen for a few myself.” He examined the green residue on my fingers. “He’s taken memories from you? He wanted to see if you knew my plans? My lord, I’m glad I never told you the whole of it.”
“No, that’s not it,” I said. “I mean, yes, he does have my memories, but not those. He did want to know about your plans. But I didn’t give them to him. That’s what he asked for right as you burst in.”
Sumiko’s lips sealed into a flat line. I opened my mouth to go on, but Sumiko shook her head. I wanted to confess everything, but I trusted her counsel better than my own. Still, it ate at me that I shouldn’t tell Meriwether what Jacques had shown me about the two of us.
He kissed my forehead. “You have no idea how it reassures me to see you safe and well. I trust they didn’t treat you too badly if the captain has been inviting you to dinner.”
“They wouldn’t let me see you. They thought the captain was you, and I presume, you the captain. But why?” I brushed Meriwether’s hair out of his eyes.
“It was safer that way.”
I drew back. Meriwether stared at me through a puffy eye so swollen it was almost closed. It was as black and blue as an ume fruit. Sumiko threw a pair of my drawers out of the dresser and continued searching for something.
I turned my attention back on my fiancé. “Goodness, what on Earth has happened to you?”
He waved me off in his haughty British way. “The French have such a forward way of questioning. It’s perfectly ungentlemanly.”
I skimmed my fingers over his bruised cheek. “Why didn’t you just tell them who you were? They would just ransom you off to your father like they did with Sumiko and me.”
Sumiko, ever the practical one, used a pair of my stockings to bind Jacques’ hands behind him.
Meriwether gave me a weak smile. “If only it were that easy. Had I a mind to, I would dress up as a lady and see if my situation might improve.”
“Stop jesting. I can see through this façade you project.” He made my blood boil with his silly games. “Tell me what all this is about. Why are you pretending to be the captain? He’d dead, you know. They killed him, probably thinking he was you. And I know we were headed to your father’s space station, not to my grandparents.”
His expression turned serious. “The captain is dead?” He closed his eyes and sighed. “I feared as much.” He straightened. “We received word from the United Worlds that the hyperjump station we were to use had been attacked and destroyed by pirates. We had to switch course to a different station. I sent word to your family to have a ship meet us at our exit point.”
“No, before that. I saw the charts. I saw the course. You lied to me. You never intended to take me to my grandparents on Earth.”
He swallowed. “Quite so. I lied. I thought you were supplying information to the French and I didn’t trust you. I apologize. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?”
Now it was my turn for apologies. My eyes burned. “Meriwether, my love, of course I forgive you. Only I’m afraid you might not find it in your heart to forgive me.” I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. I needed to make my own confession. Sumiko continued trussing Jacques up like a tanuki about to be slaughtered. Even so, she wasn’t oblivious of my imploring gaze upon her and she shook her head again.
“You are both wasting time,” she said.
Meriwether went on. “Listen. I should have confided in you once I realized you weren’t a French agent. But there was no time.” He stroked my face. “I only just escaped tonight so that I might warn you. While on the journey to Planet 157, I received word that my identity had been compromised and the French knew of my involvement in destroying countless French ships.”
“What? But how?”
He waved me off. “There’s no time to explain. Since they now know all I have done, Captain Jeanfreau will kill me if he discovers I’m Meriwether Klark, not Captain Ford. He might say otherwise, but don’t believe him. Captain Ford took on my identity and I his, so that even if they tortured him, they wouldn’t be able to get the truth from him.”
“What identity? What would they torture you for?”
“I have secrets. I’ve kept much from you. I have been aiding the alien suffrage movement, and in doing so, fighting those who have been attacking the planet. They know that now. No ransom in the world will be enough to satiate a French pirate’s thirst for revenge.”
“Pirates? I thought this was the French army?”
“Jacques works for himself,” Sumiko chimed in.
“Indeed,” Meriwether said. “Jacques was my father’s man, and after leaving my father’s employment, he connived his way to a post as a commander.”
My stomach clenched at the thought I had unwittingly helped him gain that post with chiramantep stones from Aynu-Mosir.
Meriwether said, “He is a mercenary and will do as he pleases in the end. It’s his lack of loyalty to any one cause that makes him a greater danger than any other enemy.”
I thought back to the memories I had stolen. “He is still in the employment of your father. Shouldn’t that keep you safe?”
“Not if he intends to double-cross my father.”
The layers of conspiracy boggled my mind. This was far more complicated than I had ever expected from Jacques and Meriwether. Sumiko crossed her arms and tapped her foot in uncharacteristic impatience.
Meriwether kissed my fingers. “I will have to find some way to get you off this ship and bring you to your grandmother’s ship. It is imperative you find a way to board it. Convince Jacques that the Jeffersons will pay a higher sum than my father promised. You might be able to strike a bargain with him.”
He kissed me full on the mouth, right in front of Sumiko. When he pulled back I could see the sorrow in his eyes.
“Why do I have the sense you’re saying good bye?” I asked.
“Because he is,” Sumiko said.
“What?”
Meriwether didn’t meet my eyes.
“There’s time enough for talk later,” Sumiko said. “Are you going to continue wasting time with all this chatter or are one of you going to help me with him?” She nodded to Jacques and gestured to the bathroom.
“Indeed, you are quite right, Miss Sumiko.” Meriwether took one of his arms and she took the other.
“I can help,” I offered. I grabbed Jacques’ feet, though it was likely they didn’t need my assistance. We dragged him to the water closet and closed him in.
Meriwether turned to Sumiko. “I believe a change of plans are in order. My beloved has memories she needs returned to her. And information she will need for your survival.”
Sumiko shook her head. “We don’t know if there’s time. This is folly.”
Meriwether laughed in a stuffy, British manner. “Didn’t you know? Folly is my middle name.” He turned to me. “In light of what I know and what you’ve just told me, it’s imperative Jacques believes you hate me and wish me dead. Which is why I wish you to shoot me.” He held out the laser pistol.
Chapter Thirteen
He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Space Station
“Are you mad?” I asked.
He gave me his most simpering smile. “Probably.”
“If you want us to use one of your gaijin weapons, you might have the decency to show us how to use it,” Sumiko said.
That was Sumiko, ever the pragmatic one.
“Capital idea.” Meriwether flipped back a hammer. “This is the safety. You have to remove it before the laser pistol will shoot. Then you need to let it warm up before you—”
Sumiko and I exchanged a glance.
“What?” Meriwether asked. “Wait, you didn’t know about the safety, did you? Oh, I am a ninny, aren’t I?—I don’t just pretend to be one.”
I couldn’t help laughing. I sobered when I looked upon the gun again.
“I’m not shooting you,” I said.
“It’s imperative you do. They will find me. And it’s likely they’ll find me in here because I’m not leaving until they make me. You see, what I’m about to do might take a while.”
I felt my eyebrows rise. It sounded like he was proposing something scandalous.
“I’ve got to give you every memory I have that will help you know who to trust and how to escape. You have to know about the alien suffrage movement. And most of all, I want you to know how much I love you.” He laid a hand against my cheek. “If I give you these memories, they won’t be in me, correct? They’ll be able to torture me and I won’t be able to give anything away—including my sources of information, where you’re going, and how. But it will be dangerous for you if they have any hint that my memories are within you, which is why you must shoot me—preferably in the leg.”
Tears filled my eyes. “If they’re convinced you have information that you don’t, they’ll torture you to death to get it, won’t they?”
Meriwether waved me off. He gave his usual, haughty laugh. “That’s if you don’t accidentally kill me.”
Sumiko giggled. I shook my head at her. Now was no time to encourage such morbid jests.
Meriwether stared into my eyes, hopeful expectation in his own. He was so beautiful at that moment, despite the scuffs and bruises, I could have believed he was an angel with his deep-set eyes and long lashes. His hair had come loose from his ponytail and fell around his shoulders in waves.
He squeezed my hand. “I realize I have no right to ask you to burden yourself like this. But I must ask. If I don’t, I fear what might become of you.”
“You must steal the memories the way I showed you,” Sumiko rushed past me and went to the dresser. From the bottom drawer she pulled out a fresh handful of memory moss. I swear she knew her way about my drawers better than I did. “You must apply the memory moss to your hands so that it looks as though you are giving information to him. That way you can say he broke in to force you to give him memories. He was trying to find out what knowledge you might have gained from Jacques. You can then shoot him and call for help.”
Meriwether nodded in agreement.
I shook my head. “No, I will not do this.”
“Then you will doom yourself to death,” Sumiko said. “And me as well.”
My stomach clenched at the idea of harm coming to her.
“Please,” Meriwether said. “We’re wasting precious moments. I need to give you my memories. It’s only a matter of time before they discover the guards we’ve killed. I must give you the information you need to escape to safety, and then create a diversion so that you might do so. This is the quickest and safest way to transmit that information.”
I looked from one to the other.
“If you love me, I ask that you do this for me.” Meriwether kissed my palm. The intimacy of the gesture sent a shiver through me. His eyes were round and reminded me of a chiramantep cub.
I did love him. Didn’t he see?—That was why I didn’t want to be part of this. And yet, it seemed that I had to if I was to help him.
Meriwether looked to Sumiko and then to me. “If they burst in as you are transferring memories to me, they will wonder why Miss Sumiko stood by and did nothing. If this plan is to work, Sumiko must be tied up.”
“Yes. Bound and gagged,” Sumiko said. She rummaged through my drawers. She waved a hand at me. “Start the memory exchange. I can tie myself into knots.”
“Not convincingly,” I said.
“You’d be surprised. Hurry.” She shoved the memory moss into my hands.
I had my doubts, but we needed to make haste.
Meriwether untied his cravat and removed his shirt. He sat on the bed. I didn’t know if I had time to grind up the memory moss properly to make the paste. Instead, I rubbed the moist moss directly onto my hands and crumbled it between my fingers. It was fresh enough to make my flesh prickle.
Meriwether set the pistol on his lap. I sat beside him.
“Think of what you want to give me.” I placed my hands on his chest. The tingle intensified on my palms.
He leaned toward me and planted a tender kiss on my lips. I closed my eyes and sank into the blackness. I pulled his memories into me, using everything Sumiko had taught me.
I was a man—Meriwether Klark. Tight breeches hugged my legs. A laser pistol weighed down the right side of my belt.
I wore a hooded cloak and kept my chin angled down so that the fabric draped my face in shadows. I walked down back corridors of the space station and kept to the shadows, using a servant hallway where I wouldn’t be seen by the upper class. If I wasn’t too late, I would be able to arrive at the appointed meeting place early. I would be able to wait for my informant without risk of giving my identity away.
Maids and errand boys took one look at me and darted to the other side of the narrow tunnel. Surely, I looked like some kind of dastardly gentleman set on finding some poppet for his amusement. I suspected that was the only time they saw gentleman come down to the lower levels of the space station. I was thankful my dearest Felicity had never come this far. A naive gentlelady would disappear into a maze of tunnels and never be found again.
I kept my pace brisk and ignored the entreaty of a prostitute wearing nothing more than a shawl over her skirts. A man up ahead shouted at another and swung a punch. A broken bottle crashed somewhere in the distance behind me. I hated to think how many poverty-stricken residents of the station had to live in this neighborhood.
I dodged into a side alley and climbed the rungs of a ladder down to the lowest level. These corridors were darker and littered with garbage. A woman emptied a chamber pot from her window up ahead. The stink of night soil hit me in a wave. A man ducked out of a doorway, dragging a woman by her hair.
“Please, help me!” she screamed. She was someone’s maidservant by the look of her uniform. “Please! I took a wrong turn. I didn’t mean to come here.”
A damsel in distress. This was not what I needed. If I lingered I might miss my appointment.
The man struck her across the face, effectively stunning her into silence. The man’s voice was gruff. “Shut your mouth. No one cares ’bout the likes of you.”
She was but one human being. My errand might mean the lives of thousands. I couldn’t stop to lend aid. Even so, I found myself speaking up.
I sighed in exasperation. “I care,” I said.
The man released her and whipped around to face me.
I kept my chin ducked down to keep my face hidden in the shadows of my hood. “Sir, unhand this woman.”
“Oh, what’s this? A proper gentleman, have we?” He laughed. He unsheathed a piece of jagged metal fashioned into a knife from his belt. It was the most barbaric thing I’d ever seen.
“Appropriating metal from the space station is a law punishable by death,” I said.
He lunged for me. I pulled out my laser pistol and stepped aside in time to keep myself out of the path of his knife. I meant to give him a warning shot, but there was no time as he dove for me again. I leapt back and took aim. Blue light hissed out the nozzle. The stranger toppled over.
The woman sank against a wall, shaking and crying.
“Get up,” I said. “Whose house do you work for?”
“Lord Klark’s.”
Of course, she did. Just my luck! I didn’t recognize her, but that didn’t mean much. It was my father’s mandate that good servants were i
nvisible in their housework. If she was a servant in my father’s household, that meant I was going to have to escort her all the way back to the first floor.
“Are you able to walk?” I asked.
She nodded. She stared at me in wonder.
I pulled my hood lower over my head. “Look away from my face,” I commanded.
Immediately she did so.
“Take my arm,” I bade her.
Her hand trembled against my elbow. I had to slow my pace to half of what it had been to accommodate for her small gait and wobbling knees. When we came to the upper floor where servants traversed, I stopped. “You know your way from here, I presume. Don’t let me catch you wandering off the central path again, do you understand?”
She kept her gaze down. “You’re the Phantom of the Station?”
I chuckled. “You may call me that if you like.” Better she thought that than she knew whose son I was. I turned on my heel and traveled from whence I’d come.
I continued on to the next set of hallways, up two flight of stairs and down two more and into an engineer’s closet. When I peeled back the sheet of metal from the bottom, an air duct was revealed. It was low to the floor and barely large enough to accommodate a grown man, but I crawled inside. I used my elbows to propel myself forward. After resting several times, I took a tunnel to the left and then two to the right. I passed the flats of the lower classes. Men’s voices echoed from up ahead. The rumble of laughter and shouts bounced off the walls of the metal tunnel. The smell of ale and sour bodies grew as I approached the bar.
It was doubtful anyone would hear me squirming by, but I made myself rest so I wouldn’t become out of breath. I moved again, this time painfully slowly. I waited at the air vent above the shadowy booth in the back corner. No one was supposed to sit there, yet a man did. The barkeeper was to see to it that no one uninvited claimed that spot, so I assumed this man must be my new contact.
I watched the room through the slats in the vent. The man wore a hood over his face, lest he be recognized. The fine fabric of his cape marked him as a rich man. He fidgeted and moved to the edge of his seat to leave.