by Corey Ostman
“Where’s Anna?” Grace asked.
“On patrol,” Raj said from the kitchen. “Dan made a separate breakfast for her and some of the hands and family.”
As the plates clinked down on the table, she was vaguely aware of Tim and Avo discussing the PodPooch’s blue gel matrix, comparing it with Avo’s brain and debating the strengths and weaknesses of a differing approach to consciousness. It seemed congenial. A knot somewhere in her back unwound.
Raj appeared with a platter of eggs, one side scrambled and the other sunny side up. Then he returned with one plate of bacon and another heaped with flapjacks. Dad came out balancing a coffee pot, a jug of syrup, and a plate covered with pats of butter.
“Let’s eat!” Dad said, plopping down at the head of the table. “And don’t dally. After we’re done, I still have to cook another batch for the rest of the hands and our extended family.”
Grace laughed and sat to his right. She took two big scoops of scrambled eggs and four flapjacks, layering butter and syrup between the cakes.
“Does Avo eat?” Dad asked, motioning to the empty chairs at the table.
Grace shook her head. “No, he doesn’t. He can fake it, though.” She swiped two pieces of bacon and crunched. “Mmmmmmm, but there’s no need for him to pretend here.”
“Pass your mug,” Raj said, and poured her coffee.
“Thanks.”
“How’s your head?”
Grace held the steaming mug up to her lips and sniffed. “Aches. More than when I first woke up.”
Raj considered her. “I’ll adjust your medbind and—”
“I don’t want to wear it just yet.”
“—you can put it back on when you sleep,” he said with a smirk.
“Fine by me.” She grinned and grabbed more bacon.
“Gracie,” Dad said, uncharacteristically toying with his fork, “are you gonna change your face back?”
“We don’t have the equipment here,” said Raj.
“Raj said he’d fix me up once we get back to Port Casper,” said Grace at the same time.
“Makes sense,” said Dad. “Just missed my Gracie’s face, is all.”
“If I’d had my face, I wouldn’t have gotten here to see you,” said Grace. “We owe Avo and Jaya a lot.”
Dad nodded gruffly. “That’s so. Good to acknowledge the help we get from folks.” He raised his glass in Raj’s direction. “By the way, thanks for fixing me up.”
“My pleasure,” said Raj.
“Good thing you did, too,” Dad said, between forkfuls. “I was up early. Had to deal with the Council about this Lyle business, just to go on record in case any city folk started asking about him.”
“Trouble?” Grace asked.
“Nah,” Dad said. “We hired him full and legal. It’s cloister, and we decide what to do with our dead.”
“What about Ephron Panborn?”
“Hasn’t shown his face,” Dad said. “But folks know about Lyle. If Ephron shows up looking for work—”
A cowbell sounded from the living room.
“Who else could it be,” Dad grumbled. He peered into the living room toward the front door.
“Want me to get it?” Grace asked.
He shook his head, rising from the table. “Nah, keep eating. But you two better move out of sight,” Dad said to Avo and Tim. They scrambled toward the kitchen as her father opened the door.
“Mornin’, Zeb,” Dad said.
“Sorry to bother you, Boss. But the sooner you see this, the better.”
“Huh?”
Zeb pointed away from the house. Grace leaned against a window and parted the curtain, looking out across the grass. There were nine people on horseback. She didn’t recognize them.
“What do they want?” Dad asked.
“From the village,” Zeb said. “They know your daughter is here, Boss, and they remember she was banished from re-entering Cloister 11. They’ve come to bring her in and collect the reward.”
“Reward my ass,” Raj said, pushing away his plate. “They’ll turn her over to the aposti.”
Dad pulled a scattergun off the hook beside the door and stepped past Zeb, onto the porch. He racked the slide of the weapon. A few of the horses stamped at the sound; a few of the horsemen looked worried, too. But one on the end prodded his horse forward.
“I don’t have any quarrel with you, Dan Donner. But your gal is here against council orders. We claim the right to bring her in.”
Grace tapped her ptenda, selecting the green symbols near the top for Wheatland Prefecture. Static filled the screen—a reminder that the ranch wasn’t on an official circuit. Several satellite hops were necessary to break through the enforced luddite bubble of Cloister 11. A black and white moiré pattern ghosted on the display, then sparkled into a color feed.
A chiseled brown face loomed back at her, black hair cropped short. His broad torso sported an armored protector jumper with a shirt of camouflage tan.
“Good morning, Protector Bellows!” Grace said.
“Donner!” he said, his eyes dancing as they scanned circuit identifiers. “But you still look like…?”
“Never mind,” she said. “The longer I stay here, the worse it’s gonna get for Dad. Can we get an evac?”
Nick shook his head. “The prefecture can’t enter cloister,” he said. “We could meet you at the border.”
“I don’t know who you are, mister,” she heard Dad shout, “but you take your friends and skedaddle!”
“Not good enough,” Grace said to Nick, looking out the window. She saw the leader of the posse nod to the others on horseback.
“We’ll be back with more folks in two hours. Nobody blames you, Mr. Donner, for protecting your own. But we’re gonna bring her in, one way or the other.”
At that, they galloped away down the hill.
“Is it aposti? They are causing problems all over Wyoming Compstate,” Nick said.
“Not to mention in your prefecture.”
Nick sighed. “It’s a mess here, Grace. The mechflesh crackdowns, the paranoid—”
“They were here last night.”
Nick leaned forward. “Are you all right? Did they—”
“We ran them off. But now it’s some folks in town. They heard I was back.”
“Ah.” Nick looked down. “Grace, I wish I could fly you out of there, but with the prefect watching—”
“I know.”
“Send me a message if you need a pickup at the border, ok?”
“I will, Nick. Keep safe,” she said. “And give Flora my love.”
“Will do, Grace. Keep in touch. Bellows out.”
The screen dissolved into a series of monochrome squiggles and lines.
“They’ll be back soon,” said Dad. He was standing in the doorway, arms crossed. “Do you have an escape plan?”
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s time to pack.”
“Will Nick and Flora be picking you up?”
“No,” she said, looking at her contact list. “Somebody else.”
• • •
“Gracie!” her father’s voice boomed from the living room above. “Your fan club outside is getting bigger. Get a move on!”
She tapped her ptenda. Two hours nearly up. She and Raj had the basement lab almost packed. It was looking empty with all of the sheeting down. Her father used to keep preserves here, before the root cellar had become a laboratory. Now with all of Raj’s things gone, she wondered what he’d keep here. Or would it stay empty, in the hope of her return?
She touched a long gash on the wall, a mark she’d made with a rusty old cavalry sword. She wondered if she ought to pack some of her childhood things. Should she ask Dad for one of mom’s maps? A gun from his stash? She considered it for a moment. No—it felt wrong to strip the memories from her home. They belonged here, enshrined. She sighed. When can I come home again?
“Grace, are you sure we shouldn’t call Nick back?” Tim asked, pawing at her leg.
“No, I’ve arranged for transport with Taisia,” Grace said. “We wouldn’t make it to the border with all those bounty hunters outside. And I’m sure there are aposti lurking, too. I didn’t want to risk setting a belt cruiser down in cloister, but now we’ve got no choice.”
Tim nodded.
“Avo, you can carry these two crates of medical equipment?” Raj asked.
“Yeah,” said Avo. He looked at Grace. “When we get to Port Casper, we will need a safe house, right?”
“Yes,” Grace said. “I’m not sure when or if I can return to my apartment.”
“Ok,” he said, smiling. “I know what to do.”
She raises her eyebrows. “What, exactly?”
“Never ask a super spy his tricks.”
“Ha. Thanks, Avo.” She ruffled his hair before he went up the stairs, then checked her ptenda.
“Just a couple of ticks until Taisia arrives, Raj. All the tech’s packed, right?” Grace asked. “I don’t want the posse to pin anything on Dad. They’ll forgive him for harboring his daughter. They won’t for possessing tech.”
“Just about done. But I need your help with the last one,” said Raj. He pulled over an empty crate.
“What goes in there?”
“Planar,” Raj said, motioning to the metal cabinet in the corner of the lab.
The old Martian twofer. Their friend. It felt wrong to see him sitting on shelves, with his limbs, torso, and head detached. Grace remembered Planar full of life, a diplomat negotiating with fearful humans over a robotic sanctuary deep in a dead Martian geyser. He needed to be restored, like Tim.
Like Jaya.
They packed Planar’s body in the crate.
“I miss him,” Grace said, stowing the final piece. “Any luck sparking his consciousness again?”
Raj shook his head. “Not yet, but I haven’t given up.” He closed the crate. “You take one end, I’ll take the other.”
Grace nodded. “You go first.”
Her father was standing among the boxes at the top of the basement stairs. After setting down the last crate with Raj, she flung herself into his embrace, melting into him as he cradled her head against his shoulder.
“You just got here,” he whispered.
“I know, Dad. You sure you don’t want to come with us?”
He laughed. “You know me better than that, Gracie. But I’ll figure out a way to come visit you, just as soon as we get the ranch back into shape.”
A roaring thunderclap made her push away from his hug. Dad looked as confused as she. There hadn’t been a cloud in the sky.
“Rain?” Anna asked, pushing aside a crate.
“No,” Avo said. “Seven hundred sixty-one millimeters of mercury and steady.”
“A sonic boom,” said Raj.
“Transport is here!” Tim barked from the door.
Grace rushed to the front window. A shadow covered the growing posse and a deafening roar came from the sky above. A massive belt cruiser had spiraled down from the heavens, directly above the cowboys. Grace grinned as she recognized the Waltz.
The roaring ship spooked all the horses. Some of them spilled their riders; others raced off in all directions. The cowboys that had been thrown, and the others that had managed to keep their horses from bolting, moved together into a tighter group.
The piercing sound of the engines died down as the belt cruiser landed softly in front of the house.
“Get ready to march the crates aboard!” Grace shouted.
“With the posse? How?” Raj asked.
Grace drew Marty. She grabbed Bloom’s push collar off the top of a crate, reminder from Avo’s heroic efforts to thwart Ephron and gain control of the herd. Grace slammed open the screen door and bounded onto the front porch. On the lawn to her right were about thirty bounty hunters, her fan club, agitating to take her in.
“See this?” Grace yelled above the noise of the cruiser. “This is the sort of tech the aposti have brought into our cloister. These same aposti are turning all of you against your own!” She hurled the push collar in front of the posse, a line drawn in the sand. “The aposti aren’t worth your time. Now get outta here and let my family be!”
“We came for you, Grace Donner,” said one of the posse. “Not your family.”
“Grace is a Donner,” roared her father, shotgun in hand. “You come for her, you come for us.”
Grace turned to see a shotgun or rifle out of every window. The Donner clan protected its own. Behind her father, her friends spilled out onto the porch, each carrying their crates of tech.
The cruiser’s hatch lowered, Taisia clutching a phase rifle with both hands.
“Get aboard!” Grace shouted, pointing toward the open hatch. “We’re done here.”
Raj and Anna, Tim and Avo streamed past with their cargo. The posse didn’t dare move. She turned to her father and took his hands in hers.
“I love you, Dad,” she said. “I don’t say it enough.”
He smiled. “Love you, too, Gracie. You don’t have to say it. I know it.”
She nodded, taking one last look at her father and her home. Except for minor damage, the house looked as it always had: a ramshackle homestead set against the harsh Wyoming wind. It was her childhood, but her life wasn’t here anymore. The same might soon be true for her father. She would have to check on him.
“One minute, forty-three seconds until the next satellite sweep. We have to get out or we’ll be tagged,” said Taisia in her dermal dot.
Grace dashed aboard the Waltz. The hatch behind her closed. She ran to a seat between Tim and Avo, strapping herself in. They were facing Raj and Anna. Raj reached out and grabbed Anna’s hand as the cruiser lifted higher, acceleration pressing them into their seats. Grace smiled. She liked Anna. They were good together.
Avo tapped her arm. “Will we really see Earth from the outside?”
Grace grinned and tapped her ptenda.
“Taisia? Avonaco would like the complete package.”
“Understood. So I do couple of orbits before landing at Port Casper.”
She was close enough to hear the AI boy squee.
“So,” Tim said, nuzzling her arm. “We made it out.”
“And you’re alive,” said Grace. She stroked the mimic fabric of his cheek. It brightened from black to a pale yellow where her fingers touched, tracing her every move. A sweet gesture, that. She’d never seen his coat react to anyone else.
“I can’t relax just yet,” she said. “Too much adrenaline.”
“The fight’s over, for now,” Tim said.
She smiled. “It isn’t the fight. It’s seeing you.”
“Am I really that beautiful to look upon?” His lip curled at the corner of his mouth, just beneath his eyes.
Yes, you really are that beautiful, she thought, and began to weep. It was joy at first, but behind the initial crest of happiness was a tidal wave that was months, perhaps years, in the making. Without Tim, she’d been adrift, so alone that she couldn’t understand who she was without him. It was worth every step she’d taken to get him to cloister.
Yes, it is, thought Jaya.
“Grace? You ok?”
Raj and Anna were watching her with concern. She wiped her eyes, wanting to share this moment with Tim, but not everybody else.
“It’s just…” Her stomach rumbled, mid-thought. “Did anybody bring the leftover bacon?”
Further Reading
Hang out in Cladespace!
Visit http://portcasper.com to find out about upcoming books. Be sure to join the mailing list.
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Acknowledgments
My wife Nenita was there every step of the way, and this book wouldn’t exist without her support. I’d also like to thank my trio of beta readers that took the time to read and extensively comment
: Bob, Darlene and Robyn. And though this novel was a solo effort, I want to give credit to Justin Pecot because we ended up developing a universe where both of our bizarre imaginations feel at home.
Like all prior books of the Cladespace series, this book was edited by Vanessa Phin. Much red ink was spilled in the process, and the tale is so much better for her craft, her care, and her imagination. Robin Ludwig’s cover art captures the essence and mystery of Tim Trouncer. Is he a dog? Is he a robot? Is he something radically different? Only time will tell!
Thanks for grabbing a copy of PodPooch. It’s been lonely without Tim Trouncer, so let’s see what happens next.
Corey E. Ostman
February 2017
Copyright
PodPooch
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Copyright ©2017 by Corey E. Ostman.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
Published by Fifteener Press, LLC.
Fifteener Press, LLC
45 Lafayette Road #245
North Hampton, NH 03862
1-857-244-1493
http://fifteener.com
ISBN-13: 9781939475077
Edited by Vanessa Phin.
Cover Design by Robin Ludwig.
Kindle Version, February 27, 2017.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23