by Viki Storm
“I’ll tell you everything,” I say, “but not now. When we’re done.”
“Whenever you’re ready,” he says. “Usually telling someone makes the pain go away. When it’s tucked away into the dark recesses of the mind, it takes on a grotesque, shadowy shape that often bears no resemblance to the actual thing.”
“After,” I repeat. “For now, just know that I did a job on Ashima last year and I made an enemy of Tinio, the local warlord.”
“I’ll smash him,” Auvok says.
“That’s comforting,” I say, “but it was my fault. I stole quite a lot of cargo from him.”
Auvok looks at me for what feels like forever. The shame of what I did makes me look away, but he puts his hand to my chin and points my face upward so I’m looking into his large calico-colored eyes. “All I know about you is that if you stole from him, you had a good reason. And he probably deserved it too.”
“Maybe,” I say. And I relent. I rest my head on his chest and wrap my arms around his waist. My chest is a bright storm of emotions—but to my surprise, most of them are good. It feels so good to let go into him, to feel his body against mine, the arms of his unconditional devotion strong and secure.
“Let’s get this over with,” he says, dragging the tips of his claws gently over my head. Shivers wrack my body and my nipples go rock hard. “Pitch the damned gemstone into the mineshaft, say the magic words and go back to Viltra where I’m not going to let you out of the bedroom for a week. When I claimed you, it did nothing to slake my desire. It only made me want you more. I haven’t wanted a female like this ever in my life. It’s a different sort of desire that’s taking over my entire body—and soul. I crave union.”
I’m breathing fast, my pussy becoming uncomfortably hot. “A week might not be long enough,” I say.
“A week with a named Virixian warrior?” he mockingly scoffs. “Not a female alive can survive an onslaught of that magnitude.”
“You might be surprised,” I say, “now that I too have had a taste of what you’ve got to offer.”
The speaker crackles and then Ennest’s voice pipes in. “You guys coming? We’re almost there.”
We strap in and descend onto the surface of Ashima. Whatever brief respite Auvok’s comforting embrace has given me evaporates as the Vulp passes through the atmosphere. I root around in my waist-pouch and take out the little glass jar. Quickly, I uncap it and dip my finger inside, catching the delicate little disc. I let the excess liquid drip off and then lay the disc over my eyeball. I get the other disc and place it over my other eyeball.
“Retinal overlays?” Ennest asks.
“What she puts inside her eyes is of no concern to you, human,” Auvok growls. I swear, it’s a miracle it hasn’t come to fisticuffs. Then again, the day’s still young.
“I don’t want to get arrested,” Ennest says.
“You lack backbone for someone who was searching for the Jewel of Supreme Power,” Auvok says.
“And you want to spend the next ninety days in an administrative prison while they sort out our trial dates?”
“Please,” Auvok says. “No prison can hold me.”
I make a show of rolling my eyes, but inwardly I’m amused by Auvok’s display of puffery. It’s cute. It’s hard to see with these retinal overlays, but it’s a necessity. I know the entrance procedures for almost every major planet, and several of them employ retinal scans—it’s just that Ashima is the only planet where I need to use them or risk capture.
Ennest’s worried about an administrative detainment and trial. Wouldn’t that be great? If the warlord Tinio finds out that I’m on his planet, my detainment and trial will be completely under the table. And I know what the outcome will be.
The intake agents direct us into the processing queue. We wait our turn and two agents board the ship, scanning for unauthorized explosives, narcotics and lifeforms. The agents are Trogs, like almost everyone on Ashima. They’re a plodding, aggressive race—quick to quarrel. Trogs are not a prolific race; this is their home planet and, as far as I know, their only planet.
“Out of the ship,” one of the agents says. His sloped forehead and drooping lips disgust me, but I hide it well.
Ennest looks like he just filled his britches, so I say, “It’s standard.” It’s clear he doesn’t believe me because his hands tremble as they unbuckle his harness.
“Is it really standard?” Auvok whispers.
“Yes,” I say. We follow the two Trogs out into a processing area. “They’ll do a quick health scan that checks for foreign microbes and then scan our eyeballs. Then they’ll let us back onto the ship and we can go.”
We walk one by one through the med-scanner. Ennest holds his breath as the panels hover up and down his body. Auvok goes next, looking annoyed at the presumption that he is anything less than a perfect physical specimen.
I walk through it, knowing what’s going to happen. It happens at every health scan. It beeps and the mechanical arm falls down, blocking my path. The Trogs grunt and mash a bunch of buttons, then a green light flicks on and they let me through.
“What was that about?” Ennest asks. “Are we okay?”
“Calm down,” Auvok says. “Comport yourself with the dignity of a male of your race.”
“Retina scan,” a Trog says. He points to a chair situated in front of the scanning apparatus. Auvok takes a seat and waits as the mechanical arms lower and the scan commences.
“Auvok of Virix, proceed,” the Trog says. “Next.”
Ennest sits down next and gets his scan. “Ennest proceed. Next.”
My turn. I don’t have anything to worry about, I’ve used these retina overlays plenty of times. But I’m still jittery as I sit down. The scanner runs and retracts. “Chera Hezal, proceed,” he says. My fake name.
I stand up and feel the weight lift. I can do this. That was the hardest part.
“Halt!” Two Trogs step up and take my arms. The cuffs slam around my wrists before I can say anything.
Auvok rushes them, but another Trog points a stunner at him and he goes down like a sack of rocks.
“Nice try, Vela,” a voice says. I turn around and see the warlord Tinio standing behind me. “You like the chair? Was it comfortable? It should be, since it measures over four hundred points on your body, matching them to the database where it identifies the sitter.”
“Well played,” I say. And mean it.
“I knew you were stupid,” he says, his prodigious belly joggling as he waddles towards me. “Anyone who steals from me is stupid. But stupid enough to return to my planet?”
I glance at Ennest, who’s rigid as a plank. Poor guy, he had no idea what he was getting himself into.
“That hurts,” I say, “coming from a Trog of all people.”
“See,” he says, “that wasn’t very smart either. I don’t know if I can teach you to be smart, but I can at least teach you some manners.”
The hood comes down over my head and is cinched shut around my neck with quick efficiency.
My last thought before the stunner presses against my arm is that at least Auvok wasn’t awake to witness my cataclysmic failure.
When I’m dead, he’ll at least be able to keep his fond memories of me.
Chapter 15
Vela
When I start to wake up, it’s so hot I can barely breathe. The jolt must have really jangled my nerves because I feel like the floor is rocking beneath me. My head is still covered up, but when I try to claw away the covering, my hands won’t move. They’re cuffed tight behind my back. And my new boots are gone.
“You could have let me keep my boots,” I say. The sun’s blasting down, frying the bare skin on the tops of my feet. You get a sunburn quick in Ashima; it’s relatively close to their sun and the atmosphere is thin. I guess for that reason alone I should be glad my head’s still covered.
“What was that, my lovely lady?” Tinio says.
“Why’d you take my damned boots?” I ask.
>
“You ever hear the saying, ‘ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies’?”
My stomach roils. There’s any number of vile things he could have in store for my bare feet, involving a pair of pliers, a blow-torch or a scalpel. Knowing Tinio, however, what he’s planning probably involves a combination of all three. I can’t puke because of the sack covering my face. I concentrate all my efforts on not puking, but of course that just makes me feel more nauseous and want to puke even more.
“I’m so glad we crossed paths,” Tinio says. “It’s been, what, one or two years?”
I say nothing, instead listening for clues. I don’t know where I am, but if I’m to have any chance at escape, I need to get my bearings. I’m outside, I know that much from the heat of the sun on my bare feet. I’m on a floor of some sort, not the dirt ground. I haven’t heard anyone else—just Tinio. It’s a safe bet that we’re alone. His bird-brained Trog underlings love to grunt things like ‘yeah, boss’ and ‘good one, pal’ to curry favor. I hear nothing else. No ground transport vehicles, no ships flying overhead. A bird squawks. But birds can be big; they can have sharp talons and hooked beaks.
“But you didn’t come back to give me my money,” he says. “You were trying to sneak by, using those cheap retinal overlays to get past the intake guards. Going to stop by Ashima without saying hi to your old pal Tinio. Well, that’s okay, we’re saying hi now. Catching up on old times. Reminiscing about the past. Reliving the ten thousand credits you owe me. That was a pretty good caper, I gotta hand it to you. Had me fooled.”
“I,” I start to say, start to justify my actions. But I can’t. I know what I did was wrong—even if Tinio is a greedy prick.
“You what?” he says. “You took seven crates of antivirals to Mutza’s World, and instead of meeting my guy and getting my money, you decided to double-cross me? What did you do with the stuff? I had my guys search Mutza’s World high and low, none of the fences had it, none of the street guys had it. The hospital didn’t even have it. Where’d you take it?”
I guess I owe him the truth. He’d arrange for a Federation med-ship to be intercepted. He cleaned out the ship, and among the spoils was the aforementioned seven crates of antiviral powder premix. It’s not only needed on Mutza’s World, but they need it in huge quantities. Also, the poor souls on Mutza’s World are used to being gouged by black marketeers like Tinio, and they’ll pay three or four times what it’s worth. When I heard about it, I asked Tinio for the job and he gave it to me. I was supposed to fly in, meet his contact, swap the cargo for the P.C. and then return to Ashima where I’d get a twenty-percent cut. But I obviously didn’t do that.
“I gave it away,” I say. “I went to the slums and the outskirts and I gave everyone a month’s supply—two months if they had kids in the house.”
He yanks the sack off my head, taking with it a big chunk of my hairs. I have so few left, every one I have left is precious.
“Let me see your face,” he says. I squint against the bright sun, but I can see Tinio’s tusks, a runner of drool ready to break free and land on me. His brow is wrinkled, protruding out so far it provides a little shade for his beady eyes.
“It’s the truth,” I say. “I just gave it away.”
“You gave away ten thousand P.C. worth of meds? Just passed it out like you were Santa Zav on Christmas morning?”
“Sorry,” I say. “When I was flying into town, I went past a funeral procession. Something inside me sort of snapped.”
“Something inside you’s going to snap for sure,” he says. “Your spine, your femur, your… what do you humans call the thick plate behind your forehead?”
“We don’t have one,” I remind him.
“I can understand someone else giving you a better deal. I can understand throwing it in the river for spite. I can understand trying to go into business for yourself. But just giving it away to the dirt-farming plebs on that shithole planet? Have you gone insane?”
“Probably,” I say.
Then I see why he took my boots off. And with the sack off my head, I can smell where we are.
Will Auvok come for me? I know he’ll try. But the odds of him finding us way out here are slim to none.
Tinio has taken me out into the middle of Lake Blue, on the East side of the planet. It’s not a water lake, but a pool of methane. The stench is terrible. Only specialized boats can float across the surface, because it will corrode and disintegrate most metals and composite materials.
I don’t need much imagination to think of what it will do to me.
“Ready to put your boots back on?” Tinio asks. He lifts up my head and rests it against the side of the boat so I’m in a semi-reclined position. So I can see my feet and what he’s about to do. He’s been getting ready while I’ve been passed out.
There’s two buckets filled with a gloopy mixture. He grabs one of my legs and tries to guide my foot inside. I kick the bucket over, but the stuff inside is so thick that it doesn’t spill. Tinio is strong. Really strong. Under his blubbery exterior is a solid, muscular frame. He sits on my legs, cursing me for a fool. “This is the risk you took, and you know it, so settle down and pay what you owe.”
He’s right, but that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t want to let him pitch me over the side of the boat. I strain and push my legs, but to no avail. My foot goes inside the first bucket, the adhesive squishing between my toes. It’s heavy. I can’t flex my ankle, not even a little.
I’m going to sink like a stone.
He fits the second bucket over my other foot. That’s when the panic really sets in. I thrash and wriggle, thinking vaguely that on the floor of the boat, I must look like I’m doing my best impression of a fish on the end of the hook. Except no fish swim in Lake Blue. Nothing swims in Lake Blue. There’s only death. The low, acidic pH of the water stings my nose and makes my eyes water.
“You won’t sink, you know,” he says. “Not at first.”
Of course not. Why would Tinio give me a quick death? He wouldn’t be the unquestionable boss of Ashima if he let people like me steal from him. He’s gotta make an even more gruesome example out of me because I got away with it for so long.
I shouldn’t have done it, I knew it then and I know it now. I just couldn’t help it. When I commed Tinio’s guy on Mutza’s World to arrange our meeting spot, he left his mic open after we ended the comm. I heard him talking with one of his associates, about how he was paying less than one Palladium coin per packet but could sell it to the desperate plebs for over fifteen P.C. He said that he’d arranged this, purposefully declining to purchase crates of the antivirals for the last six months to create a shortage of the stuff.
How could I let him make so much money off the people who scraped everything together just to keep their families alive? He had no idea what the people on that planet did to make sure they had money for the antivirals. Times were good when the Federation could send regulated, low-cost shipments. When they were at the mercy of guys like Tinio and his ilk? Times were bad. Very bad.
I shouldn’t have done it, I suppose, but I couldn’t not do it.
Sorry, Auvok, I was looking forward to completing our mission and going back to Viltra with you. I’m not totally sold on all that fated mate stuff, but I am sold on you. After a lifetime of being alone, I finally found someone that I wanted to be with, someone whose company didn’t start to annoy or repulse me after five minutes. Someone who I looked forward to seeing, talking to… touching. Someone who I let into my body, spreading open physically and spiritually.
It’s not fair—but life’s never been fair to me.
Tinio slides his arms underneath my armpits, hoisting me up. He’s trying to make me stand, but I stay limp. I’m not going to help make his job any easier.
“The expanding foam you’re standing in,” he says, holding me up easily. I’m sure he can just lift me up and throw me into the lake when it suits him. When he’s done with his little speech.
Can I keep him talking? Can I stall until Auvok gets here? If Auvok gets here? I know he’ll come. I know he’ll try.
No. Scratch that. If there’s one thing I know about a named Virixian warrior, it’s that they don’t try. They succeed.
“It’s foam?” I say, turning into a regular chatterbox.
“Yes, expanding foam. Your feet are cemented in place, so don’t waste your time trying. The foam is dense.”
“Then I’ll sink,” I say.
“You won’t,” he says. “Not at first. I adjusted the catalyst agent to your weight and relative buoyancy. You’ll sink just up to the chin. Your ugly little head will bob on the surface.”
“Please, Tinio, I’m sorry,” I say. I hate to beg, hate the whiny sound of my voice. But I have to stall. I have to have faith in Auvok. He’ll come, but I have to try to give him the time.
“It’s too late for that,” he says.
“Your guy on Mutza’s World, he was screwing you, he was paying you one P.C. but getting fifteen P.C. per dose.”
“I’m well aware of that,” he says, “and do not presume to tell me how to run my business. Now. The foam. It will slowly absorb the water, lowering your ugly little head one millimeter at a time. First your lying, treacherous mouth. Then your sneaky nose. Then those two-faced eyes. All the way until you sink to the bottom. They say it’s bottomless, an old crater that was—”
“Tinio, I can make it up to you,” I say. “I know a guy on New Europa, listen. Tinio? Tinio?” The buckets slide on the deck as I slide backwards into Tinio’s prodigious belly. “Tinio?”
I turn my head, but I already know what I’m going to see. A little pink crystalline shard sticking out of his neck.
“Auvok!” I scream. I look all around and can’t see him. Damn, he’s a sharp motherfucking shooter if there ever was one.
Tinio’s dying body twitches underneath me, his jerky movements causing my gorge to rise. I try to stand up, but I can’t get my footing, can’t grab anything.