by Hugh Howey
The small, blue head peeked out at her. Molly raised both hands, showing her palms to the alien. The eyes withdrew, but she could still see the crown of its bald scalp, the light from the hangar filtering into the carboglass and then through its clear skin. It looked like a mere child, half the mass of an adult Drenard. Molly’s size.
So frail, she thought to herself.
Molly took a few more steps forward and the rest of the head withdrew. She called out softly, “It’s okay. I’m not here to hurt you. I’m a friend, okay? My name’s Molly.” She continued to reassure the Drenard, and herself, as she crept into the rear portion of the cockpit. When she could see its shoulder over the edge of the nav chair, she stopped. Fighting to keep her voice steady, she asked, “Your name is Anlyn, right? That’s a very pretty name, Anlyn. Very pretty. My name’s Molly. Can you say my name?”
“Molly.” It came out less than a whisper but more than a sigh. The pronunciation was flawless. It seemed the act of communicating at all was what the creature needed practice with.
“That’s right. My name’s Molly. I’m a ship captain. A pilot. Do you like to fly?”
Molly saw an immediate reaction. The alien’s smooth head turned to her, its pale eyes locking with her own. The sight of this poor thing gazing up at her filled Molly with the anguish of conflicting emotions. Part of her wanted to sweep the girl into her arms. Part of her just wanted to bash those chains. And years of training lashed out at both ideas.
Anlyn parted her thin, blue lips. “I can fly,” she said. “But I don’t like to.”
Molly wanted to ask her why, but the Drenard cut her off.
“You’re not supposed to be here, and I’m not supposed to talk to you. Albert will hurt me if he finds us. Go, please,” she whispered.
Her head pressed back to her knees, her eyes fixed on her toes.
Molly thought of a dozen things to say, but remained silent. She imagined herself walking a little further and touching that clear shoulder, but she didn’t. Instead, she became overcome with sadness. A new kind. Directed at someone besides herself.
She turned and followed the chain back to the cargo bay.
••••
Molly found Edison at one of the workbenches, working a rag over some contraption. He turned to face her as she approached, a massive smile dominating his face. “Technology is spectacular,” he said. “I’m extremely appreciative of the opportunity to manipulate it.”
She scratched his arm and pressed her lips into a flat line. “Have you seen the girl in Albert’s ship?”
“The Drenard? Absolutely. Extremely fragile, in my estimation.”
“She’s a slave, Edison.”
“I concur. Liberated organisms do not decorate themselves with chains.”
Molly thought about some of her classmates at Avalon and wondered if arguing Edison’s point would serve any purpose. Probably not, she thought.
“You desire assisting her, correct?” Edison asked. “Emancipation? The similarities to Cole’s plan in liberating Walter immediately returns to my attention.”
“No, buddy. I mean, yeah, I wanna do something for her, but we’re not in any shape to help out. Nothing Albert’s about to sell us is gonna dent the stuff he keeps for himself.” She thought about this—about the obvious need for such an imbalance. You can’t sell arms that you don’t have your own defenses for. She glanced at the invisible hangar door. And you could never release defense technology like that into the wild; it would put an end to your arms trade. The irony of it all—the way the market worked here in Darrin—it hurt Molly’s brain the more she examined it.
“Hey, I need you to do me a favor. I’m not sure if it’ll help, but there’s an hour-long back-scratching just for trying, okay?”
Edison nodded vigorously, agreeing before she even got to the details.
Behind them, a pale blue head rose in the cockpit’s porthole and two small eyes watched the scene below.
The wetness on them could’ve been mistaken for the glare of hangar lights on carboglass.
••••
Molly re-entered the lobby and found Cole, Walter, and Albert crowded around the store computer. Walter nodded gravely as Albert summed up the list Cole had picked out. Molly joined them on the other side of the desk to see for herself.
The list contained more than she felt comfortable getting, and more than she figured they could afford. Cole seemed satisfied, however, and she’d resigned herself to leaving him in charge of this. The more she could distance herself from this decision, the better off she’d be. If Lucin wanted to blow a gasket later, she’d blame the mods on Navy-boy.
“Excellent choices,” Albert said, slapping Cole on his back. “You guys sure are lucky to have come to me, and that I like you so much. You couldn’t get a deal like this anywhere else in the galaxy. Of course, my wife won’t be happy to see how well old Walter here talked me down. Haha!”
Walter, Molly noted, did not have the carriage of a victorious Palan. It was hard to think of their little Cargo Officer as a bastion of humility, but here he was, showered with compliments and shrinking from them as if they stung. Molly also noticed that he couldn’t stop sniffing the air around him. She tried to hurry things along. “Can Edison begin installing the gear soon?”
“Installing? My goodness, dear, we don’t have the facilities for that! My garage is for the upkeep of my own ship. Highly illegal and improper to have you cobbling your war plans together here in my shop.”
His look of feigned moral outrage almost seemed sincere. “No, no, these things are best left to the less scrupulous monsters over at Darrin the Second’s line of shady establishments. Of course, I would never recommend your going over there. Frightful place, naturally. Vicious people. It’s better to go somewhere else in the galaxy that does that sort of thing.”
“Are you kidding?” Molly frowned. “You’re gonna dump this gear in our cargo bay and send us somewhere else to have it installed? And where else can we go besides Darrin?”
“Dear, dear. I’m sorry for any confusion, but it’s all in the contract. We can’t be in the business of modifying starships for combat, no sirree. Wouldn’t do. We’d have the Navy around here asking too many questions. Those unscrupulous jerks over around Darrin the Second’s asteroid field, now those guys will do anything for the right price. Good thing they don’t sell gear, I tell you. They’d pull shady deals that might put us right out of business over here.
“Now, I say those rats can’t be trusted, but if you do decide to go over there—again I recommend against it—there is one guy I’d suggest you see. Not too bad as far as Darrin the Second folk go. I’ve had some dealings with him in the past. As straight-shooting as that lot gets. You tell him I sent you and he’ll cut you a deal, no doubt. I’ll even call and tell him you’re coming.”
“Great,” Molly muttered. Now she understood how they could afford all this gear. The next question was: Did they have enough left to install it?
••••
It took another day to procure the new flight suits, which provided plenty of time for finishing the physical side of the trade. The first order of business was to finally separate the two ships. To Molly, it felt like removing restraints from a dear friend. She and Cole had decided that this was the intended purpose: to keep their crew guarded until a deal was settled.
Albert boarded his ship and made airs of performing the complicated maneuver himself, but Molly knew he wasn’t flying. She watched as Lady Liberty decoupled and slid to the side, nearly brushing up against the hangar wall. Parsona’s cargo ramp could now be lowered and the swapping of goods could begin.
The computer technology that Walter had stowed all over her ship was crated up and carted off. Albert’s children joined in the fun, carrying off some of the lighter bits, oohing and ahhing at various spoils while their father chastised them to keep it down. Walter stood by the door, checking every item with a hiss, and making entries in his computer.
; When Albert indicated all was square, they started moving the wooden crates of contraband aboard, the sight of which made Molly’s gut sink. The illegality of these actions crashed into her upbringing and her training. It could’ve been justified in a Navy hangar, or as part of a sting operation, but the truth was, she was a civilian. No, a criminal—on the run and dealing arms.
It filled her with shame.
“Excellent doing business with you, my dear. As soon as the suits arrive, you can be off. Please tell Frankie I said hello and that he really should move shop over here. Nasty blokes he deals with over there.”
Molly nodded absently. She wished the suits were already here so they could just leave. Somehow she doubted Darrin II could be as bad as this inhospitable and soulless wasteland.
That night they dined again with the entire family. With no business to tend to anymore, there was an eager gaiety surrounding the meal, but Molly still couldn’t partake in it. So far, in what she’d seen of the galaxy, the fairy tale she’d concocted in her brain didn’t exist except in her imagination. The gorgeous scenery on Glemot had been marred by the nasty brutality of its people. The cliffs of Palan were pockmarked with prison cell windows. She had no idea what Darrin I or II even looked like. War had turned them both into rubble.
Molly played with her food. She felt envious when Edison excused himself early, but sat with her own thoughts until the end of the meal, as was expected of a ship’s captain.
Albert shook hands with the entire crew; Mrs. Gaines pecked each of them on the cheek. It felt too bizarre for Molly. She went through the motions numbly, smiled weakly at the exhausted children, and followed Cole and Walter back to their ship.
Strange, but she felt a little sad that they didn’t have to cross through Lady Liberty to get there. She yearned for a chance to say goodbye to the Drenard. And to point out the changes that Edison had made to Lady Liberty.
Namely, to its chains.
••••
Molly slept horribly for the second night in a row. She left her flightsuit on and lay on top of her sheets, waiting. When Albert knocked on the cargo door, she leapt up to open the ramp and help him load the parcels. The sound of the hydraulic arms gearing down the hatch stirred the rest of the crew. They appeared just in time to not have to do their share of the work.
Everyone exchanged a final set of goodbyes while Molly checked the engine room. As she crossed the cargo bay to the cockpit, Albert told her that the shield would go down as soon as he retreated to the store lobby. Walter shook his hand a final time, pumping it madly and hissing something to the big man privately.
Molly closed the ramp and hurried forward to fire up the thrusters. She waited while Cole checked the restraints on the weapon crates and Edison put away a few scattered tools. Walter pawed through one of the crates, pulling out his brand new space suit.
“You won’t need that today,” Molly told him. “It’s gonna be a long, slow burn across to those other thieves.”
Walter seemed annoyed at this, but he put the suit back in the box, patting it proudly.
“Let’s get buckled up,” she told everyone as she performed the last of the pre-flight checks.
Cole joined her in the cockpit and booted the nav computer. “Brand new charts!” he said.
“Yeah, but you know what they say: those things are out of date the second you install them.”
“True. Hey, can I delete our old charts from the system? They’ve been nothing but trouble, anyway.”
“Absolutely,” Molly said.
Cole typed in a few commands and hovered his finger over the enter key. Molly shot a hand out and grabbed his wrist. “Wait,” she said. “The nav tracks from the trip with my father. Gods, I know it sounds stupid and we really don’t have the space to spare, but… will you hold off on deleting those charts?”
“Sure thing,” Cole said, smiling. “And that doesn’t sound stupid to me at all. When we get some time, I’ll copy the tracks and waypoints over to the new charts and clear up the space.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it. Are the boys strapped in?”
Cole checked his vid screen and gave her a thumbs-up. Molly had the chase cam up to watch for a change in the forcefield. When the shimmer of light disappeared, she pushed the thruster throttles forward, gently lifting the ship. She retracted the landing gear immediately, keeping them from scraping on the decking as the Parsona slid backwards into space.
She spun the craft around just outside the door and faced the long line of asteroid-based shops strung out in the distance. The sight of them gave Molly a sudden impulse to do a full burn, charring the far wall of Albert’s hangar with black soot, but she resisted the temptation. Instead, she nudged forward—expecting resistance at any moment—but finding none.
30
Molly had hoped leaving the crooked line of shops in Darrin I would bring relief. Instead, she found herself heading out to their mirror image. SADAR showed the line of asteroids marking Darrin II in the distance. Beyond them, drifting and colliding, another ring of planetary debris loomed.
They could have chosen to jump across through hyperspace, arriving at Frankie’s shop in less than an hour, but Molly had lied to Albert about being low on fusion fuel. She looked forward to the respite of another slow burn, beginning to appreciate the time between waypoints that she once found painfully dull.
She locked in two Gs of acceleration, the most Parsona’s grav plates could balance out and allow movement about the ship. When they reached the halfway point, she’d spin them around and decelerate at two Gs until they reached Frankie’s. She left Cole on watch and went to take a hot shower, her second of the day. Walking past the crates of illegal arms in the cargo bay, she had a feeling that another mere rinse would not make her feel much cleaner.
At the workbench, Edison tinkered with yet another project. The sight of him in his Glemot robe, fresh and white, deepened her funk. Otherwise, she would have stopped and given him encouragement and inquired about his latest invention.
Molly paused by Walter’s room before turning into her own. Through the closed door, she could hear him mumbling to himself in his own language. The sounds of water bubbling over stone were interspersed with hissing English words for which his language had no substitute. “Navy” and “video game” caught her ear, creating the illusion that she understood a bit of the Palan tongue.
Molly had completely forgotten about her promise of a reward. What would Lucin say when he found out the Navy owed money to this strange kid? And surely the boy wasn’t thinking about blowing his reward on those silly games of his.
After her shower, Molly yanked her jumpsuit out of the washer/dryer. It was still slightly damp, but she pulled it on anyway. The uncomfortable coolness matched her mood. She strolled out to the cargo bay and froze at the sight of an opened crate. Edison leaned over the contraband, fiddling with something.
Molly didn’t want to dissuade her friend from showing initiative, but those crates represented something bad about herself—she didn’t care to see them toyed with. She also didn’t want to take out more of her frustrations on her friends, so she walked to the other side of the crate and gently asked him what he was finding.
“Plasma inducer in excellent condition,” he told her. “Impeccable. And fully charged, no less. Simple mounting procedure required, is all.” He looked up at her with a wide smile. “Installing these units would be highly enjoyable.”
Molly scratched his head. “I know you’d enjoy it, pal. And if Albert would’ve let us use his garage and tools, you’d be doing just that. Heck, if there was a safe place we could go right now that had a pile of scrap metal and something bigger than our ship’s welder, I’d take you there.”
She looked down into the open crate at the long gleaming shaft of the laser canon. “Imagine having to scratch my back before I scratched yours. Like in a Council meeting when you have to give someone a vote to get a vote in return. That’s why we have to go to Frankie’s.”
> Edison nodded. “My understanding of the situation is complete. Just expressing my imagined pleasure.”
She patted him again and set off to relieve Cole when something Edison had said made her stop in her tracks. She whirled on him. “Did you say those things were already charged?”
He nodded. “Fully. A simple depression of this mechanical device discharges a stream of modulated plasma with an amplitude of—”
She held up both hands. “I understand. Do me a favor? Please put the lid back on and go check the chaff pods. Or try on your space suit and make sure it fits and breathes all right, okay?”
“Absolutely, captain. With haste.”
She exhaled, turned to the cockpit and nodded at Walter. The boy had returned to his computer, programming away. Despite her annoyance with him wasting time with that game, she couldn’t imagine life on Parsona without that thing to baby-sit him.
“Bored?” she asked Cole as she wiggled into her chair.
“Yeah, and loving it. You missed a new arrival while you were in the shower.” He pointed to the SADAR display.
Molly looked. Back at Darrin I the entire fleet of pushy salesmen raced out of their shops to greet a new customer. Except, unlike her, this buyer had jumped in safely and knew to sit and wait. Molly felt sorry for the poor guy, then caught herself. Anyone doing business here did not deserve her pity. Herself included.
One of the red blips rushing out had a clear lead. Molly imagined it was Anlyn, chained to her chair and out-flying everything in the system. She hoped the poor girl found Edison’s alterations before Albert did. And as much as she’d love to watch the starved slave bust free, Molly hoped there’d be a lot of distance between Parsona and that fight before it broke out.
“There has to be a better way of conducting business,” Cole said, studying the chase on SADAR.