by Mick Fraser
Rathe sat back, unperturbed by the Auton’s tone. “If I wasn’t in the business of picking up the odd stray here and there, where would you be?”
Gage snatched a bottle off the counter-top, then poured and drained a beaker of dark blue liquid in one fluid motion. “On my back in a seedy fly-over somewhere, fucking, drinking and thieving without having to listen to your jek all day.”
“Then you’re welcome.”
Gage flashed them the parody of a sweet smile, all narrow eyes and too much tooth, tossed the glass against the near wall where it shattered into pieces, and headed for the door. As she went by she intentionally banged her chrome flank against the back of Angela’s chair.
“Don’t get too comfortable, Earthborn. If you’re not dead inside a standard week, you’re as like to be flushed or sold by a half-day after.”
The door shushed closed behind her, and Angela caught Rathe’s expression. “And I thought I was bad-tempered,” she joked, awkwardly, pushing her plate away.
“Pay her no mind, Angela. Gage is a singularly hostile creature.”
“So why is she here?”
“Because she chooses to be. And believe me, there are few I’d rather have beside me in a fight.”
"You get into a lot of fights, do you?"
Rathe smiled, relaxing. "More than our divvy, yes. It goes along with the life. Piracy pays well, but it's mostly danger-money. You don't strike me as someone afraid of getting her knuckles bloody."
Angela shrugged. "I've never got the hang of backing down, if that's what you mean."
"Oh, then you'll fit in just right here. We tend not to be soft-touches."
She looked around the room for a moment, her eyes settling on the view from the mess-room window. "So how come you're not Captain?"
“Well, it’s Drenno’s boat,” Rathe replied, crossing his arms. “I’m just an advisor. I’m more like... a rudder, than a crewmember. Ship full of hotheads, someone needs to keep us moving in the right direction.” He tapped his chest. “Usually that’s me. Sometimes it’s Shimmer, but usually me.”
Angela glanced at the door, then back at the shattered glass that lay glinting on the floor. “What did you mean before, when you said I was more human than the rest of you? Six-Tails said something similar.”
He sat forward, scratching his beard. His clear eyes seemed stronger in a certain light, and Angela saw more of her granddad in him. Not in his appearance, but his demeanour. She was almost certain that he had been a soldier once. No, more than that: a commander, a general perhaps. He was past sixty, but could be mistaken for someone several years younger when he spoke. His voice was clear, and though the diplomat in him won out and peppered his words with a natural charm, there was undeniable authority in his voice.
“When we brought you onboard we assumed you were human. And you are, in almost every way. But we found something else... something extra... in your genetic make-up. It’s hard to explain, but to all intents and purposes, you’re one-hundred percent human. Only there’s an extra few percent in you. I know it doesn’t make much sense, but that’s the best way I can explain it. Since the amp worked, we can assume that the extra is, perhaps, Iniir DNA. The simple truth is, it doesn’t matter. Human or not, you’re here now, with us.”
Angela sat back. She felt numb inside, from the neck down; dizzy from the neck up. “Six-Tails said the same. He said I’m human but not human.”
“You’re human, but you’re something else as well, and that something else enhances every part of you. You know,” he said softly, changing tact, “all the things that make us human – the way we think of ourselves as human – are finite. That’s the obvious secret, the truth that’s there for all to see that no one does. We’re each given a certain measure of strength, intelligence, courage, fear, faith... It’s what we do with what we’ve got that dictates who and what we become. All you need to do is determine the parts that make you up, whatever they may be, and strive to be greater than the sum.”
She stood and crossed the room to stand before the wide window, her eyes raking over the curdled colours and glimmering lights of deep space. Some of Rathe's words might have stuck, but she couldn't appreciate them now. Any impression they made was but a stain that she expected to uncover later. Her granddad used to say that any advice he gave was dead on arrival, a ghost to be unearthed when she got around to spring-cleaning the dusty old catacombs of her soul. He was probably right, for the most part. She heard advice but didn't often heed it; her force of habit, birthed on the cold damp streets of Soho, instead dictated that she act almost exclusively on impulse. She had learned to trust her own gut before anyone else's words.
Which left her conflicted now, because, inexplicably, she trusted Rathe Massai. Whether his words were honeyed by years of diplomatic negotiation, or he was just a genuinely good person, she couldn't tell. Hell, maybe she was just using him as a surrogate granddad. Either way, his words resonated with something inside her, made her feel at least welcome, if not altogether comfortable. With a deep breath she cleared her mind, focusing on the endless whirls of space beyond the window.
A stream of colour dominated the view, as though some cosmic god had mixed up a great big tin of paint and gone to town. It glimmered against the backdrop of deep space, wherein tiny pinpricks of light twinkled in and out of focus. There were colours there that Angela didn’t even know existed, colours cast somewhere between emerald and violet, burnished copper and summer yellow, deep azure blue and fiery amber. It was beautiful, rich and endlessly mesmerising.
She heard the door shush behind her. “It’s incredible,” Angela said, as Drenno entered the room.
The Captain chuckled, resting his hands on the counter beside her. “Seeing it for the first time, I guess it is. Would it break your heart if I told you it was just dust?”
Angela turned her head, raising the corner of her mouth. “Dust?”
He nodded. “Flotsam. Our destination is on the other side of that cloud. Place called Haze. Has a lot of different purposes, lot of different visitors. One thing they all have in common is that they’re not legal. Most of the patrons are, for one reason or another, in the business of getting to and fro at some speed, which means running their Phase-drives without containment. Very dangerous, very stupid, but incredibly pretty. Leaves behind a residue that looks like somebody tore up a rainbow and spread it all over the sky. As it happens, also very handy for disrupting long-range broadwaves.” He winked at her. “But it’s still just dust. How did you sleep?”
“Better. Nice not to have fainted or been knocked unconscious for a change.”
“I would imagine so.”
She hesitated a moment, and the Captain raised an eyebrow. “Rathe says there might be answers here. To why this Evayne is looking for me. Why I’m here.”
Drenno scratched his beard. “Yup. That’s what we’re hoping. Paryx usually comes through for us, as long as we have the coral. Isn’t always cheap.”
“Isn’t ever cheap,” Illith corrected him as she and Gaelan entered the mess. “The Nanestocian is a fucking pirate.”
“We’re all fucking pirates, Ill,” Drenno smirked. “It’s all we’ve got.”
Illith made a hissing sound through her teeth and scowled at Angela. “You’re going to stick out like a bunwari crest in a herd of trask looking like that.”
Angela had seen that look plenty of times. She felt her hackles rising. “What the hell does that mean?”
Drenno chuckled, raising a calming hand. “She means you’re going to stand out like a broken nose where we’re going. She’s right. Haze attracts a certain type of visitor, and no offence, but you look straight out of academy and dumb as mud.”
Angela bit her lip. “How could I possibly take offence at that?”
The Captain gave a sardonic grin and turned to his daughter. “We need to do something about her hair. Maybe her get-up, too.”
Gaelan crossed her arms. “You mean I do?”
He sprea
d his hands. “She looks like she just landed here on her arse and borrowed some clothes. Accessorising isn’t really my speciality.”
“So what is?” she snapped, stalking past him. “Follow me, Earthborn.”
Angela, who at that point had gone back to staring from the porthole at the swirl of colours beyond, suddenly realised what Gaelan had said. “Oh,” she said, sourly, “that’s me.”
The Avellian led her through Habitat, into a suite of quarters that looked like they belonged to every science fiction geek’s fantasy representation of a teenage girl. The colours were dark: black, blue, violet; a training dummy stood against the far wall dressed, amusingly, like Drenno, currently stuck with no less than seven blades of varying lengths and styles. The bed was neatly made, but strewn with gloves, sleeves, discarded jewellery, and empty weapon holsters. In one corner, on a stained and tattered blanket, was what looked like an engine of some kind, covered in dark grease and oil; beside it, a small square of glass displayed a data readout in blue and yellow.
“Sit.” Gaelan stood beside a chair, placed in front of a rectangular mirror above a desk upon which were various ornate boxes and bizarre-looking tools. Angela found herself smiling. “You have a vanity dresser?”
The Avellian did not smile. “Because I live on a ship amidst pirates I’m to spend my days as a dowdy maid? Who do you think cuts Illith’s hair, or trims Bregga’s mane?”
Angela tried to control the smile. “Of course, I mean it makes sense. You’re a teenage girl, after all.”
Impatiently, Gaelan tapped the chair. Her skin was now deep blue. Angela wanted to ask what it meant, but felt she could probably guess. Affecting to look meek, she sat down. “A little off the bangs, then,” she said in a serious tone. “Maybe some colour— Ow!”
Gaelan tipped Angela’s head back and began to work. Before long, Angela realised she was creating a braid. “You’re supposed to ask if I went anywhere nice on my holidays?”
“Is this all a joke to you?”
Angela sighed. “It might as well be, yeah. What is you want from me? One minute you’re telling me to accept that I’m here, then you’re telling me to be afraid – I can’t do both.”
Gaelan tugged lightly on her hair. She was silent a moment, then spoke softly. “I apologise, Earthborn. We don’t get many new faces on-board. It all has me a little on edge.”
“My name is Angela. You keep calling me Earthborn.”
Looking up, she saw the ghost of a smile on Gaelan’s upside-down lips. “It suits you,” the Avellian said, then: “What’s this?” She traced a fingertip across the tattoo on Angela’s neck, the tip of a large design that curled across her right shoulder and upper back. “Does it mean anything?”
“Means I rebel,” Angela responded gruffly, pulling away from Gaelan’s touch.
The Avellian sensed her tone and didn’t push, instead focusing on her task. She completed a second thin braid in Angela’s hair, then drew the rest back severely. Now she set to work fashioning a high horse-tail. When Angela finally looked up, she saw that two slim braids now hung beside her face, laced with golden twine and decorated with tiny crimson and burnt orange beads.
“Now you look like an Orrenian, leastways. More specifically, an Elbian gang-runner,” Gaelan explained. “I have an outfit to strengthen the deception. Oh, and this.”
From a draw in the vanity table she produced a device like the one she wore on her own brow. It looked like a headset, but there was a second part to the device that resembled a mobile phone on an elasticated harness. Gaelan tapped the screen for a few moments then handed it to Angela. “It’s a databand. I’ve given it your name; it will collect the rest of the data the first time you wear it.”
Angela took it. The material was odd, durable but lightweight and soft, like warm leather. “What does it do?”
“Everything you need it to. The headset contains a drop-down smart-HUD, which will project data onto what you see, and can scan objects in the environment and cross-reference them with a digital database. There’s also an in-built breather and commlink. The wrist-reader connects to HubNet as a source of information, tracks your vitals, stores data, sends and receives broadwaves and vidcaps; it even generates a 3D satellite or sonic map of your immediate area, which it relays to your HUD.”
Gaelan helped her fit it and made a few adjustments until it was comfortable. Angela reached up to touch it, and blinked as the heads-up display appeared. She scanned around the room, watching as translucent numbers and figures blinked on and off. She pressed it again and the HUD vanished. “I can’t read any of it. It’s a shame it doesn’t play music.”
“It does.” Gaelan crossed the room to where a squat, hide-covered chest, like an Ottoman, occupied most of the wall. She opened it and dug in, lifting out various items of clothing and putting them back, shaking her head or tutting. Finally satisfied, she turned, holding up a black cat-suit made of either leather or PVC, with a short dark brown over-jacket with an embossed logo on the back; she also produced a utility belt and a pale triangular scarf. She threw the cat-suit at Angela, who caught it and stood.
“These boots will work,” Gaelan told her, before handing Angela what looked like a harness. “This strap goes around the waist, this one over the shoulder, diagonally. Here’s a neckerchief for decoration. You don’t want to stand out on Haze.”
Angela was feeling less and less confident. “Is it really that bad?”
“It’s a waystation for smugglers, hype-dealers and slavers. It’s also an AEGIS black-spot, which means anything goes. High crime rate, higher death rate.”
Angela forced a smile. “Just your typical hive of scum and villainy,” she joked, before remembering that Gaelan wouldn’t get the reference.
“Indeed it is,” said the Avellian. “Now get dressed. We’re almost there.”
CHAPTER 14
~HAZE~
“YOU SURE YOU’RE ready for this?” Rathe asked her as they sat together inside the Jackdaw. The shuttle rattled violently as Dizzy steered it out of the Shadowstar’s dock. “You look nervous.”
Angela forced a smile, nodding as she adjusted her scarf. Of course she was nervous. How could she not be? Dizzy and Drenno were in the cockpit, and Angela, Rathe, Gage and Six-Tails sat in the small communal area that occupied the bulk of the shuttle’s interior space. Six-Tails was sitting opposite, reading something on one of those transparent glass screens. He was huge, taller than anyone Angela had ever seen, as broad as a gorilla, as stocky as a grizzly bear. The menacing appearance of his feline face and silver-black mane was off-set slightly by the tiny pair of black-framed reading spectacles he was wearing. His whiskers twitched, and he looked up over the rim of his glasses. Angela realised she was staring and looked to Gage. The Auton was fixing something, an engine part from the look of it; she held it in one hand while with the other she directed a beam of yellow light from a slim metal tool. Where the light touched the engine part it sizzled, eventually breaking open. Winston, hovering beside her as always, spun and bleeped, sweeping a green light of his own across the smoking metal.
Rathe leaned in. “It’s called ‘cold-light’,” he explained. “Founder-tech, like so much these days. It has two active states, tangible and primed. When it’s tangible you can use it like a solid substance, but when it’s primed it can cut into almost anything.”
Angela had to stop herself saying “wow”. Instead, she said: “Everything is so strange here. We have nothing like that on Earth.”
“You are taking it all rather well.”
“I’ve thought about that myself,” she admitted. “I never really fit in back home. Went from pillar to post my entire childhood, could never settle. Maybe that’s part of it.”
He nodded slowly. “Maybe so. It’s... not going to be easy out here, you know? You will be tested.”
“You said that already. You also said I’m not alone.”
“And I meant it.”
“Thank you, Rathe,” she said, sudd
enly, swallowing down a rising lump in her throat.
He leaned back. “What for?”
She waved her arm around. “Making this easier. If it wasn’t for you, I don’t think I’d feel this... welcome. The others don’t seem as happy to have me.”
He chuckled. “The others are barely content with each other, let alone a newcomer. They’ll come around, given time.”
“I hope so.”
“Trust me.”
The intercom buzzed twice, and Drenno spoke from the cockpit. “Okay, stallers and ballers, we are in atmosphere. Twelve turns to harbour. Breathe if you need it.”
Angela raised an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”
Rathe passed her a small black device that looked like a dust mask. “Haze has lower oxygen than a human world. You and I will need these while we’re outside. It’s called a breather.”
“And a turn?”
“Sixty heartbeats.”
“Ah. A minute. Twelve minutes. Okay. Anything I should know?”
Rathe chuckled again. “Well I wouldn’t mention where you’re from. In fact, I wouldn’t talk unless you absolutely have to. And try not to stare when we get to the Quartz.” He caught her expression. “It’s a freehouse on Haze, owned by a charming brute named BuBu. And believe me, the name is far too pretty for a place that’s essentially a latrine with staff.”
“Right. Don’t stare.”
“You’ll be fine.”
She smiled nervously. “Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?”
He patted her hand. “A little bit of both, I think.”
The intercom buzzed again. “Heads up, people,” Drenno said. “Here we go.”
Angela wasn’t sure what she was expecting to see as Dizzy angled the Jackdaw up and over the swirling cloud of light and colour that ringed the settlement of Haze, but what she saw made her eyes widen and her mouth go dry. No one else on Earth, in tens of thousands of years of human evolution, had seen anything like what she was seeing now. It was like something drawn for a book cover in the 90’s. It was fantasy. It was fucking concept art.