Catalyst

by Jody Wallace

  Now that the three of them had this opportunity to breathe, to discuss and plan, the reality of the fact that he would be parting with Su forever finally hit him. He didn’t like the hollow feeling it gave him, the resignation about whatever came next. He’d always looked forward to waking up every day, which put him far ahead of most of the people in the Rim.

  His good fortune had simply run out. But oh, what a way to use it up.

  “What are the chances of you pushing Casada to believe we did die in the barracks explosion?” he asked the cat.

  Pumpkin stretched into a long, warm snake of orange fur and heaved out a sigh. “As good as the chances of pushing you and Su to stop mating.”

  Slim to none. “On that note, if you can’t tell us anything else, I would like to take Su back to the room.”

  One last time together, to imprint on himself what she was like—her ferocity and honesty and open affection for those she cared about. He dared not say loved. Her lack of ulterior motives made it easy to feel it, though. Made it easy to slide into a sea of comfort and trust and respect all mixed up with desire. Best keep his head above the surface, though, because there was no point in learning to swim when he was about to be cut off from the water.

  “I will attempt to discuss the agreement with the others,” Pumpkin said.

  “Please be careful.” Su gathered the cat into her arms. They all rose and headed for the rooms. “Is there anything we can do to help?”

  “Don’t mate?” Pumpkin said, allowing himself to be carried like a baby. “It will only make things harder.”

  Su sighed. “You know I don’t want you to go either, little man,” she told him. “You are such a pain. And yet, I would… But it doesn’t matter.”

  Pumpkin regarded her thoughtfully. Wil opened the door to Nan’s antechamber, and since Su’s grandmother was still awake, the conversation switched to dance and the future, but not the part of the future that included a talking cat.

  A careful hand on his shoulder shook Wil awake. He opened his eyes to darkness and silence. “What is it?”

  “The hailer stopped and Casada is on the move,” Su whispered beside him. “We have to go.”

  He sat up, but before she could whisk out of bed, he grabbed her arm and pulled her against his bare chest. The softness of her breasts, her cloud of hair, the rasp of her fingernails—this was his last time to relish what they’d discovered between them. “I can’t express how much I want to stay, but I need you to hear it anyway.”

  “I would make room for you,” she said softly, “but I don’t want Casada’s EE-torpedoes to be part of the remodel.”

  “Agree. We aren’t just us.” The question was, who was he going to be when he left here? When he left Su and his dance career and his good fortune behind?

  “As you’ve seen, I would even dance for you. Nobody in my life has ever been able to get me to dance, Wil Tango.”

  He kissed her and said, “I could tell.”

  She laughed and pushed him out of bed. They dressed swiftly. No sign of Pumpkin. Had he skipped away to talk to the others? The ship couldn’t reasonably leave without the cat, so Wil had to hope he would show. It would be difficult to explain to Hoff and his crew that the cat could find them in a stellership the same way he’d found them inside the building.

  Upstairs the silence persisted, almost oppressive without the background clatter of hail against windows. Hoff and several crew members waited in the lobby, small duffels packed and ready. Their coveralls were padded, with hoods and fleece hand coverings. The cover mission was a toxic waste pick-up run with a conglomerate of space stations and gen ships in the Oka sector. It would take several hours to fly to an acceptable distance from Trash Planet for the QED drive to fire safely.

  “Had this prepared for you,” Hoff said gruffly, handing Wil a duffel. “Thintech clothes, food, some money, a zapper gun, and an untraceable chrono. Oh, and a parka. You’ll want to put it on before we go out there.”

  Wil unzipped the bag and donned the heavy coat. Once in Oka, he would gamble at one of the entertainment stations in the Oka Conglomerate before Hoff flew him elsewhere. There were enough population centers in Oka that Casada could hunt there for years. And it was far enough away from Gizem that Casada’s influence would be minimized.

  Pumpkin was going to fight him on going into hiding. But what else could they do? Gamble until Casada caught them again? The cat hadn’t consented to give up casinos—and it wasn’t like Wil had to go along with him—but he hadn’t been as uncooperative as feared. He’d even agreed to check with his associates about how much he could tell Wil and Su.

  Wil supposed that meant Pumpkin would only be telling him more about the situation. In fifteen minutes, when he walked across the grounds to the armored freighter that would transport them to the Q-ship in orbit around the planet, Su was no longer a part of the equation.

  Would Wil by himself possess the same ingenuity, the same ability to solve Pumpkin’s issues, as he and Su could together? Pumpkin had been the one to steer their prior decisions, with Wil in the passenger’s seat, but Su—Su was a driver. Wil could no longer be just a pair of hands along for the ride. He would need to handle Pumpkin the way Su would. They’d both be better for it.

  “And where is Pumpkin?” Hoff asked. “This carrier should protect him during the wormhole transfer and moving from ship to ship in the cold. Surprises me you didn’t already have one, but that drakh chewer might have taken it, eh?” A crew member held up a large plastene box with a handle, vents, and latches.

  “He even took Wil’s clothes,” Su said. “The only reason he didn’t nab Pumpkin is because he couldn’t catch him.”

  Hoff frowned. “You found Wil in cryo sleep in a Pish container ship. How did the cat—”

  “There you are, you rascal,” Wil said loudly. Pumpkin trotted up behind Hoff from the direction of the cafeteria. “He’s quite independent. Cats are smart, you know.”

  Hoff put the crate on the ground and unlatched it. “Here, kitty kitty.”

  Su chuckled, but her face was drawn and pale. “He’s not going in that crate, I guarantee it.”

  Wil agreed. The box had no windows or grates to allow Pumpkin to see out. But Hoff would have had to create something from an existing container, since he doubted stellarship-approved live animal crates were needed on Trash Planet.

  “But he has to. It’s too cold outside and the hail will freeze to his paws. I put a blankie inside.”

  “Pumpkin?” Wil said. “Be a good boy.” Pumpkin’s eyes narrowed. “Ah. Can you carry him, Hoff? I think he’ll let you.”

  The hail would not freeze my paws if I skipped, Pumpkin said in Wil’s head. But I suppose I will endure this.

  “I would love to.” Hoff squatted down and patted his knee for the cat, who strolled past Su and rubbed his body against her leg on the way to Hoff. By the expression on Su’s face, he’d said something to her. A crew member picked up the unused crate. and Hoff bundled Pumpkin into the front of his giant, faux-fur coat.

  “Aren’t you coming?” Hoff asked Su. “Where’s your hail suit?”

  “I can’t.” Su stared at Pumpkin and her uncle, not Wil. “Factory.”

  “I thought the two of you…” Hoff motioned between them. “You know.”

  “Accurate,” Su said. “But still. Factory.”

  Wil’s heart tightened. The moment had arrived. They’d made no schedule for secret communications, no plans to even attempt it. This was a costly fling for her, nothing more. He hadn’t impacted her like she had him—beyond the damage to her truck and barracks—and that was all right. He was the one who needed to grow into a new existence. Her existence, her role in life, was already a benefit to those around her, while he had to change his role entirely.

  Of all the people he could have met when his career ended, Su Abfall was the perfect person to spur him through the conversion. He might lose dance, and Su, but he would be alive, helping Pumpkin with…whatever.

>   “We’ll leave in five minutes,” Hoff said. “Su’s man in Bunk Port said Casada left, what, twenty minutes ago? Let’s not waste time. We’re not even unloading the freighter because that would take hours.” The door closed behind him, leaving Wil and Su alone. Alone but apart.

  “Is Casada headed toward your factory?” Wil asked. Five minutes. At least one to run to the ship, so four. “We’re past his deadline.”

  Su shook her head. “I don’t know. Wasn’t able to get a tracer on his ship. Bart’s not an experienced stalker.”

  Wil rubbed his forefinger against his thumb so he wouldn’t reach out to her. “What if Casada doesn’t believe I’m gone?”

  “Hoff’s people are going to start talking it up after you leave,” Su said. “The classes you taught. Me being here. Specifically, you catching a ride to Oka to gamble and party. The closer to the truth, the better.”

  “Then when I show up in a casino with Pumpkin…” Wil stretched out his fingers, the fleecy mittens dangling from the end of the coat sleeves. It should work. It should keep Su and everyone here safe. “But won’t he track where Hoff goes when we leave the Oka Sector? Follow us?”

  “Who said you were leaving with Hoff?” Su offered Wil a rigid smile. “My uncle’s connections are more extensive than mine. People who can pay for toxic waste to be ethically mitigated are a bit different from people who want a secondhand preservation unit that won’t break the first year you get it.”

  “Su.” Wil’s throat constricted like it did when the curtain fell on the last night. But this had been no performance. No act. No practiced dance. This had been real.

  She blinked fast and bit her lip. “I have something for you. My custom MUT. The flamethrower is good for four more blasts.” She tossed it to him across the short distance, and he caught it. The handheld tool folded into many different configurations “You flick off the yellow safety that looks like it’s holding the nippers in place and then push it further. It’s disguised.”

  “Leaving this abruptly feels like a broken ankle.” He slid the compact MUT into his pants pocket. “You don’t want to fly to the Q-ship and back? I need more time.” But then he’d have to say goodbye again, with people watching.

  She lifted her hands in defeat. “You just have to go. I can’t.”

  He would not even hold her one last time, because she wished it. “I lo—”

  “Don’t say it.” She cleared her throat. With a trembling hand, she shoved her hair back, indicating she was more deeply affected than he’d assumed. “Take care of that little asshole. Tell him I wouldn’t mind…if he can skip anywhere he wants…if he were to show up and let me know how you…” She coughed. “Goodbye, Wil.”

  Su turned and strode down the hall toward the underground barracks. Her limp was more pronounced than he’d ever seen it—because he’d never seen her limp at all. She radiated the same tight sorrow he felt, but he couldn’t run to her, not now and not ever.

  His internal sense of seconds passing, developed after years of training, told him he was pushing Hoff’s five minutes, but he didn’t budge a millimeter until he could no longer see the cloud of her hair and glint of her metal leg in the darkness.

  Chapter 15

  “Should be breaking through the atmosphere at any moment,” the pilot announced.

  Wil tightened his hands on the restraint straps, his head against the back of the bucket seat. Across the passenger section, Pumpkin glared at him from the confines of Hoff’s coat. He’d experienced many planetary takeoffs and landings with the cat, but this was the first time the cat had done it somewhere other than Wil’s side. They’d been careful about exposing Pumpkin’s abilities to others.

  If they knew how Casada had figured out the cat could talk, would it change their decisions? Casada indicated it was careful observation and Wil had no reason to doubt that. But it also meant that others could do that in the future. Hopefully outside the casinos, they wouldn’t be monitored like the cheaters they were.

  The heavy freighter reverberated as it accelerated away from the gravity of Trash Planet. Over the turbulence, Hoff explained that the freighter was a safer bet than the smaller roundabout in case the storm wasn’t quite done yet.

  “Even with the toxics on board?” Wil asked. The cargo bay had held a multitude of containers, capsules, boxes, and tanks. The ship had landed right before the hailer, and the crew had been unable to offload the hazmat. The strong odor he’d noticed outside the Visitor’s Center was even stronger here.

  Pumpkin sneezed. Could you give a cat nanobots to protect him from toxic fumes?

  “This load ain’t a problem unless you set it on fire,” Hoff said, petting the cat. “A lot are long-acting. You know. They won’t kill you right away. Not that you should go swimming in them.”

  “But they’re still dangerous?”

  “Their instability puts chem fires to shame. But we’re safe. Don’t you worry. Most of the containers were refurbed in a little place called The Box Factory on Trash Planet. Quality work.” The pride in what his niece had accomplished was evident in Hoff’s voice. Wil decided not to explore the man’s feelings for Su, because he didn’t want to explore his own.

  He was leaving to protect her. And he wasn’t the only one who disliked the trip. Pumpkin was loudly displeased by the situation in the way only a cat could be.

  “You okay, little kitty boy?” Hoff cradled Pumpkin with his big, mitten-covered hands. Pumpkin growled loud enough for Wil to hear it over the rumble of the engines. “Do you think his ears hurt from the change in altitude? Susu used to cry about that.”

  “He’s fine,” Wil said. Pumpkin would have been complaining nonstop in Wil’s head if he wasn’t fine, but he hadn’t uttered a peep since they’d left the Visitor’s Center. Had the cat contacted his associates? Convinced them it was safe to tell Wil the whole truth? Pumpkin was cooperating with the current plan, so that must mean he didn’t want to change it.

  The ship slowed, or the pressure Wil felt from the acceleration lessened.

  And suddenly the ship lurched to the side. Two crew members who’d already begun to unbuckle tumbled out of their restraints, cursing and flailing.

  Hoff slapped the comm button. “What the frack are you doing, Kent? We’ve got a load of hazmat back there.”

  “Evasive action!” the pilot yelled. The ship rolled again. With the artificial gravity on, all the passengers rolled with it.

  Pumpkin yowled and slid out of Hoff’s coat. The man caught him, barely, before he flew in whatever direction the ship’s maneuvers launched him. The large man cursed under his breath as he received a number of claw marks for his valiant efforts.

  “We’re under attack, Hoff,” another voice said. “Looks like a swarm of fighters and…a heavy war cruiser? Where did that monster come from? I don’t understand what’s happening.”

  “Hail them,” Hoff growled, patting an upset Pumpkin like he would a crying human baby. It did not silence the cat’s snarl. “Who the hells is it? No picker, that’s for damn sure. Trash Planet unions don’t fight in space.”

  “This is Pilot Kent Avo of Hazer Union requesting contact with the commander of unknown stellarship fleet. I repeat. Hazer Union requesting contact with the commander of unknown fleet. You are in Trash Planet airspace and violating all known treaties with outside operators. Please be aware that militia response will be forthcoming.”

  The radio crackled ominously, and a snide voice issued out of it. “This is Drejo Casada. I believe you’ve heard of me. I’ll have my cat or you’ll be space litter.”

  That explained where Casada had gone the minute the hailer had ended. But how had he known to leave the planet and set a trap rather than fly to Su or Hoff’s property and commence with the EE-bombing? Surely Hoff’s employee gossip about their departure hadn’t reached him that quickly.

  And did it matter when they were all about to die?

  The freighter leveled out. Hoff unbuckled, thrust the cat at Wil, and stormed to
the front of the ship. The ship was laid out a lot like the Moll but in better repair.

  “If you were in the crate, you could skip out and nobody would know,” Wil muttered at Pumpkin, who dug his claws into Wil’s parka and hissed. Too many people present for the cat to act like anything other than a cat, but Wil suspected he was behaving exactly as he wished.

  “This is Hoffman Abfall. President of Hazer Union. Drejo Casada, you do not want me as an enemy. Per Contract 5023.06 with Vale Clarity, I launder your fucking hazmat. If I didn’t do that, you’d be floating in it on your stinking shithole of a space station,” Hoff yelled over the radio. He was so loud and angry that Wil could hear him over the speaker and directly from the flight deck at the same time. “Back off right now or the reparations you’ll be forced to repay will beggar you.”

  “I don’t care about your trash,” Casada responded. “I have nothing to do with waste management contracts on Gizem. Your Q-ship has been commandeered by my men, and we’ve cut off your return route to the planet. You’re trapped. If you want to live, you’ll send my cat and that cheating twinkle toes to me in your escape pod within the next ten minutes. Otherwise we will disable your engine, we will board you, we will take what we want by force, and we will kill you and everyone on your Q-ship for good measure.”

  As if saying goodbye to Su hadn’t been difficult enough, now Wil was going to have to say goodbye to breathing. There was no way out of this. Not for him. Pumpkin, presumably, would be fine, as long as his power allowed him to skip to somewhere that supported life.

  Could he skip back to Su? That would be the first place Casada would look if Wil showed up without the cat. This time, Wil wouldn’t get to enjoy the peace and quiet of cryo sleep after several hours of torture.