“The ‘new assistant’ informed me he’s taken a job on the Silas Queen,” Huido bellowed. His eyes clustered like a wave to gaze at L’inarx. “Any reason you’re here peeling fungi in my establishment without a contract or even an invitation?”
Turrned were trained to respond to situations of stress with grace and assurance, but both left L’inarx in his moment of need. “I . . . I came to say my prayers of gratitude for the meal. There was a misunderstanding. I meant no harm. I have never tasted anything so wonderful.”
Huido chortled with delight, his eyes rattling back and forth on their stems in the cacophony. “I’d like to answer humbly, but we both know it’s true.” He clacked his claws together with pleasure. “We find ourselves unable to keep up with the demand, and we appreciate your mistaken help. A pleasure to have met you.”
L’inarx shook Huido’s claw, the rim of his universe pulling in to collapse. The glimmer of light was fading. “Oh. Yes, of course. I’m grateful to have served. I . . . I will pray for you.”
The doors to the dining area burst open. “It’s been sent back!” wailed L’inarx’s waiter.
Huido let out a hiss of breath. “Impossible,” he said. “Who made this dish? Unacceptable!”
The chefs crowded around to stare at the returned dinner. It was a cut of the shorlam L’inarx had rescued from the oven. It looked all right, a single bite carved from the side of the pale white meat.
“The hom said it was . . . off,” the waiter said. “Not the flavor of Garastis 17 at all.”
The Turrned leaned in to sniff the meat. He wondered. . . .
“Bah!” boomed Huido. “He lacks refined taste. Who asks for such a style of meat?”
L’inarx took the paring knife in his hand and sliced a tiny sliver off the roast. He popped the bite into his mouth.
“What are you doing?” asked the waiter.
L’inarx swallowed.
“Salt,” he said.
“Salt?” Huido echoed.
“It has the wrong salt. Try the smoky red salt from the dried-up sea. Scorch Salt, they call it. And do you have any clipwings? They’d enhance the flavor.”
The chefs stared at each other. They stared at Huido.
“Maybe a dash of moonberry curd, too,” L’inarx added. “Infused with blue saffron.” His gray disks blinked back at Huido’s swarm.
“Don’t just stand there,” Huido boomed. “Go and get them for him!” The chefs dispersed in a flurry.
L’inarx thought carefully about his training in other species as he mixed the ingredients, about the cuisine of Garastis 17. He spread the paste onto the roast and burned it into a golden crust with a sugar torch. He watched the waiter in silence as he returned the meal to the table. Seamfish and mellowroot alike burned in their pans as the kitchen held a collective breath, peering out the sides of the doors for the sign.
The waiter waggled his antennae up and down wildly. Huido laughed, L’inarx collapsing against the counter as relief flooded through him.
“Not bad, little one,” Huido said, his eyes clustering as they looked the missionary up and down. “I’d never thought the Turrneds to have a gourmet among them. Perhaps we’ve found our new assistant. What do you think?”
Not bad at all, he thought, remembering First Mate W’harton on the shuttle. It felt so long ago, the empty bowl in L’inarx’s paws, his nose pressed against the cold glass as Plexis hovered as bright as a star. “That . . . that would be my dream, sir.”
L’inarx was a Hoch. And Hochs didn’t just dream; they shone.
“Tell me,” Huido said, reaching a kind claw around L’inarx’s back. The pads of his feet squelched pleasantly as they walked. “Do you have any experience in service?”
. . . Truffles continues
2
SOMBAY WARM IN my stomach, alert for “different” Turrneds, just in case, I took the downlevel ramp beside my captain.
The first step off onto the teeming concourse was—as I’d feared, or because—like plunging into cold water. I might have drowned, swept aside and under by the flow of busy, preoccupied shoppers, but Morgan’s steadying hand cupped my shoulder. Through the contact, words. Easy, Witchling.
With a hint of amusement.
I stiffened as he no doubt intended. “This way.” Reasoning that, as in water, going with the flow would use less energy—and result in less trampling—I stepped boldly forward on the heels of a trio of blue-clad spacers. They looked ready to find a bar, meaning the night zone ahead. The Claws & Jaws was on the other side. How hard could it be?
Which was when something small and brown and intent appeared between my legs. I jumped, it yelped, and we both went down tangled in what felt like cargo cabling.
That we weren’t immediately trampled into paste surprised me almost as much as the speed with which the Human female—apparently in pursuit of the small, brown something—untangled us. “Apologies, Fem,” she said rather breathlessly, holding on to a squirming, frantic ball with pleading eyes that could put a Turrned’s to shame. “He’s got a scent and— Oh, Fair Skies, Captain Morgan,” with a relieved smile.
My Human stood nearby, doing his unhelpful best not to laugh. “Hello, Parker. No harm done. Good hunting.”
Before I could comment from the floor, Parker put down the creature. Freed, it ran off through the crowd, towing her along by what appeared now to be a long ribbon. Morgan reached down and helped me to my feet.
“Who was that—and what?” I demanded.
“Friends.” He gazed thoughtfully into the distance. “They find things.”
An oncoming stampede of Whirtles, each clutching a white-wrapped bundle, every one shrieking, “DEBBICK!!!” made the rest a conversation for later.
Finding Parker
by Doranna Durgin
PARKER EUN SU tripped over a lower level bulkhead frame, caught herself, and stumbled onward. Excitement surged through her bio interface as Cory Dog hit the harness hard, utterly focused on the target scent and its surrounding scent pools, the puzzle of direction and air currents and—
Cory came to a stop, stymied by the utterly still air. The stale air. Parker emerged from her bio’face haze to take in the battered nature of the metal plating beneath their feet, the dimly lit corridors . . .
The deep levels of the former asteroid refinery called Plexis were no place for a Human Finder and her partner, no matter how enthusiastically that partner had brought them here. Especially not in a space already occupied by a Scat.
The Scat in question lounged an insouciant threat against the bulkhead, forked black tongue flicking from long snout, teeth everywhere. “Oh, my dear,” he said. “Just a bit far from home, aren’t we? And with such a tidy morssssel.”
Parker already had her badge palmed; she thrust it out in display. “Plexis Authority!” she said, as if her brisk delivery would make a difference. She pointed at Cory, whose wary frustration slapped hard through the bio’face. “Project property!”
The trade script on Cory’s work vest lit in response to her words. Given the correct phrase, it would also alert Hospitality Chief Randall to any peril, but that was the last thing Parker wanted right now—for Randall to know. For anyone to know.
For she and Cory Dog were in trouble again. No matter that Cory sniffed tentatively in the Scat’s direction, wagging a tremulous tail. goodgoodgood?
“How delightful!” said the Scat. “Is itssss flesh sssweet?”
Parker shortened the harness line, touching beside her eye. “I’m sending your image to my chief. We’ll be leaving now.”
“Little Hossspitality Finder,” the Scat said, “You are not important enough for that particular implant.” He straightened, flicking free a thin, supple line that would as soon cut a throat as encircle it. His predatory grin made her step back, hand tightening on Cory Dog’s line.
Because he
was right. She hadn’t sent an image. She didn’t have that implant. She had only one option, and she really didn’t want to take it. “Oh, come on. Do you really think no one’s keeping track of us?”
“You will be gone before anyone comes looking,” the Scat pointed out, altogether too amiable.
“Oh, fine,” Parker snapped. “Let’s just do this, then. Security, Alert: Cory Parker!” She glared as Cory’s harness strobed into an alarm flasher. “Are you happy now?”
Because it was really the very, very last thing she’d wanted to do.
Again.
* * *
• • •
“Food penalties!” Hospitality Chief Randall sputtered, waving the stasis-wrapped toy—battered, beloved, and well and truly lost—from which Parker had taken scent samples. “Find this thing’s owner and move on, or we’ll see if hunger motivates the little beast!”
Parker bit back a snapping reply. Chief Randall had yet to be convinced that her bio’face with Cory didn’t imbue the dog with magical intelligence, but Cory was only what he’d ever been: trained, implanted, deeply connected, and so bursting with brilliance that no other handler had been able to adapt to his bio’face interjections. Neither he nor Parker were able to conjure up the owner of a lost item from Plexis’ sometimes admittedly thin air.
Randall’s strident tones were too loud; canine anxiety pushed through the bio’face. Cory looked at her with dark eyes gone worried, ginger-brown ears hanging low: a scent dog bred to theoretical perfection, bio’face-enhanced and packed into a sturdy twenty-pound body with a happy, whipping brush of a tail.
And, Parker told herself, a whole lot of crazy.
“Chief,” she said, mustering all her patience, “Cory’s trained to recognize and follow scent, and that’s what he’s doing.”
“Wasting air is what he’s doing!” Randall gestured with the stuffed toy, a thing so generically depicted as to obscure its original species—big round ears propped atop an equally round head with a conical swoop of a muzzle and six floppy limbs. Its eyes were beady and scratched, its whiskers broken off, and its fur loved down to a soft fuzz. It had been found in the luxury sections not recently dropped from some youngling’s grip, but encased in a broken stasis wrap.
Cory had loved it fiercely, instantly, even mouthing it briefly before Parker could stop him. Such purity of scent! Such intensity! Such uniquely persistent skin rafts! He wasn’t about to abandon that scent to lesser pursuits. And Parker wasn’t about to push the point, not after he had been so close to ruin once already.
Because really, the liaison to the Triads should have known not to display Cory’s recently unearthed Hoveny artifacts behind the refreshments table where the dignitaries sat, no matter the celebratory occasion. And really, Cory had only been doing his job. But no one from the Project had stopped the dignitaries from turning on them, a verbal cacophony of assault from the people Parker had trusted, echoing through the bio’face to crush Cory’s honest, eager little heart.
So Parker had resigned from the Bio Interface Project, protecting Cory the only way she could—removing him from service simply because no other handler would have him. She hadn’t expected the offered compromise—a brand new outreach position in the giant traveling Plexis Supermarket, returning precious lost items to the luxury travelers who’d lost them.
From Finder of precious Hoveny artifacts to Finder of lost items and owners. From working in vast outdoor spaces and amazing landscapes to sniffing through the enclosed corridors and artificial air of Plexis.
No wonder Chief Randall thought their unique arrangement to be a demotion, and treated them accordingly.
Now Randall eyed her with an impatience that meant he’d decided the conversation was over. “Find the owner of this thing or move on, Parker.” Like many, he persistently confused her first and last names. She no longer corrected him; only her friends realized her personal name was Eun Su, and so far no one on Plexis had offered that gesture of welcome. Randall, of course, was oblivious. “Find them, or else we’ll see what the Project says about providing this dog with a handler who can.”
It was an empty threat on all fronts. Parker’s amusement, hidden from Randall, could not be hidden from Cory himself, relieving him of his worry as no empty reassurance could do. He jumped to his feet, head cocked, his new hunt excitement pouring through the bio’face with the intensity of a solar flare. For a moment, Parker couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, wasn’t sure what she touched. She had no access to senses of her own.
Just proving the point. If Cory could be worked by just any handler, then he’d still be with a Triad, scenting out the Hoveny sites. But not any handler could manage his obsessive intensity, his nova-like bursts through the bio’face, or his ridiculously impulsive nature. Parker, a bolt of a headache coming on, could barely do it herself.
But, for Cory’s sake, she was here. Here in this enclosed space, working with this close-minded supervisor.
For Cory’s sake.
* * *
• • •
Out in the Hospitality Section proper, Parker accepted office manager Mellilou’s sympathetic smile. She watered Cory, sprayed his hard-working nose with soothing emollient that would also help him retain scent, and chose an easy item from the found property bin. The scarf was an impossibly light silk, the painted design unmistakably that of a master. The food stain, aside from being tragic, was also still fresh. And the locator tag readily pinpointed the exact site of the find, offering Cory the perfect start to his hunt.
Besides, Parker knew where the trail would lead even before they entered the upscale convenience eatery. The luxury shuttle lounge was only two modules away, and a frequent end point. She let Cory pick up the scent and then let him drag her with undue speed to the entrance of the lounge, emoting praise-pride at every step, waving back at the smiles and greetings they received along the way—some familiar, some passing through.
When she entered the lounge, momentarily dizzied by Cory’s reaction to this sensory-rich environment of cushions and pheromones and plush flooring, privacy curtains and quiet music and relaxed whispers, the scarf’s owner stood and waited for their approach.
Cory spiked excitement and flung himself down to indicate their target—an individual of an unfamiliar species, with another of its kind; both wore highly decorative armbands.
Parker touch-released the small stasis pocket in her work vest, retrieving the ultimate reward treat—real meat. She tossed it Cory’s way as she greeted the person, presenting the scarf with a respect that acknowledged its worth.
Sometimes she and Cory were greeted with true excitement; sometimes with the ennui of those who felt themselves entitled to special effort. But Parker couldn’t remember seeing this person’s expression before—ears slanting back, eyes narrowing, lips firm and flat. She tried to not make assumptions based on Human expressions, but she was pretty sure she knew disapproval when she saw it.
The person said, “Then you do, on occasion, manage to find lost items.”
Was that disdain in those large brown eyes, heavily lashed and lined by a natural mascara that had been enhanced with cosmetics? As had the crisp white markings along the individual’s lengthy nose, and the black gleam of a nose pad above a small dark mouth with firm lips. A pair of upright ears swiveled with a rapidity that struck Parker as an anxious display, flicking at every sharp sound.
foodfoodfoods
Parker tossed Cory another scrap, hiding the sting of the person’s reaction and preparing for a rapid exit. “It was an honor to return this item. I hope you enjoy your stay on Plexis.”
The individual’s partner stood, too—a larger person with similar but coarser features and the same innate, long-limbed grace. “Address her as Fem Cervidde,” he said. “And then do what you should have done these many days ago: find and return our child’s mananna so we can leave this place.”
&n
bsp; There was no other individual of their species within sight; Parker glanced at the door to the lounge’s staffed nursery and found the gentle glow of the occupancy light. Of course; the child was being watched. “Fem,” she said, offering a small bow. “Hom. Perhaps your lost item has not yet been turned in to us, or it may be in the queue.” She understood then that the scarf had been a test, deliberately dropped. “Our office is open for your convenience, should you want to examine the queue. We return items in the order that we receive them.” Unless Cory had other ideas.
The Hom snorted through the length of his nose, a sharp sound. “You,” he said. “You are Human?”
“Yes,” Parker said, and interpreted the Fem’s head tip as puzzlement. “Some of my features may be different from other Humans, depending on their world of origin.” Hers was a colony in the Fringe, settled by a more compact group than most, closer knit than most, and still full of their own customs.
“You are small.”
“Others are larger,” Parker agreed.
“Are you too small?” the Hom asked. “Is that why you fail to find and return the mananna?”
“I am just the right size,” Parker said firmly, and repeated her previous offer. “If you’d like to examine the queue, our office welcomes your inquiry. We can also bring items here for your viewing, and I hope you’ll call on us if that option interests you.” She offered a crisp, shallow bow that meant the end of the conversation and gathered the harness line.
foods!
Cory never reached out in actual thought-words. He didn’t have to, not with the intent that spiked every emoted reaction. Parker’s own stomach, fooled, rumbled at her. She told the couple, “I hope you find your other lost item, and that you enjoy your beautiful scarf.”
Parker made a brisk retreat, marching Cory out of the lounge. Once the door swiped closed, she threw her arms out in a wildly gleeful gesture, emoting the high-pitched praise that sent his tail into a frenzy. No matter the heads and appendages it turned—she was long used to looking the clown on his behalf, and she’d learned to recognize the affectionate smiles various beings sent her way.
The Clan Chronicles--Tales from Plexis Page 4