Ragamuffin

by Tobias S. Buckell

  “Nashara.” Ijjy grabbed her shoulder. “We should wait.”

  She looked back at him. “If Jamar hasn’t responded yet, you know he’s dead or unable to help us. Prepare for acceleration.”

  Nashara initiated a link to the ship’s lamina. The backs of her eyes filled with information as she accessed everything directly. The machines inside her sensed the connection and leapt into action.

  She felt dizzy, then tired. Sedatives flooded her system. She closed her eyes.

  Nashara felt swept out on a brief tide of information, then opened her eyes again. She could see herself slumped in the cockpit chair through a handful of sensors. Classic out-of-body. Disorienting, not safe.

  She reached in and restarted her heart, checked her vitals. Everything still worked. She wasn’t in her body, but she could use it the way she’d use a drone.

  Nashara opened her eyes again.

  “You alive,” Ijjy said. A single second had passed.

  “In a manner of speaking.” Nashara struggled to maintain the old point of view. This was her body, this was where her mind resided.

  That hadn’t been too hard, she thought.

  “Hey, little lady.”

  Nashara jerked up and faced a mirror. “What?”

  A perfect copy of her stood in front of the captain’s chair. “There’s enough processing power in the ship’s lamina for the both of us,” the second Nashara said. “Been trying to wrap my head around it, took a microsecond longer than you, so I missed getting my body back.”

  Nashara stared at herself. “Oh, shit.”

  “What did you expect? We’re supposed to spread out.” The mirror image held out her hands. “Freaky, huh?”

  “You have no idea . . .” Nashara paused. “Well, you know.”

  She smiled at herself. “We have immediate problems.”

  “Which are?”

  “Who’s in charge and who’s called what? Do we time-share our body? And what do we do next with our new ship, here?”

  Both of them pondered that for a few microseconds. Nashara twisted her fingers and reached out through her new twin, just to make sure. “I know you feel like the real copy, just like I do. But since I snagged the body first, I’m going to take dibs on Nashara and the body.”

  A brief stare-down as the other Nashara thought about it. “Ah, fuck it, I’m not going to fight myself over it. But I don’t like the idea of changing my damn name.”

  “Is a rose by any other name as sweet?” Nashara asked herself.

  “Oh, that’s so cute of you, yes, funny.” Her other self snorted. “I should just take on the name of the ship for convenience, but some people just have bad taste. What the fuck is a Toucan Too?”

  “Just take one of the last names we use,” Nashara suggested.

  “Cascabel.”

  “Done.”

  “Everyone, gear prepare for acceleration,” Cascabel announced throughout the entire ship.

  “You’re flying?” Nashara asked.

  “Hell, yeah.” Cascabel grinned. “You’re staying with the body, we might need that, the Hongguo are still out there sniffing around. You know the scientists say the more you pretend to be a body and interact with the physical, the more human you’ll remain in this little experiment.”

  “Yeah, but that’s what the eggheads think.”

  “Nash, please. I get the flying.” Cascabel looked insistent. It was something to hang on to that was familiar. Nashara understood.

  “Fair enough.”

  The Toucan Too let go of the habitat. Thrown toward the downstream wormhole, Cascabel adjusted their course with a few slight bumps of acceleration. Debris chattered against the hull.

  “Escape-pod debris,” Nashara said.

  The two stared at each other. “We’ll be all right,” Cascabel said.

  Nashara didn’t need reassurance from herself. She could use the same instruments. A ship had died here, and another ship hovered near the downstream wormhole.

  Poor Jamar.

  “Something’s covering the downstream wormhole.”

  “And more somethings are covering the upstream,” Cascabel said.

  Nashara looked. A cloud of reflections signifying seven or eight ships. And something very long.

  “We’ve seen something like that before,” Cascabel muttered.

  “The Gulong,” Nashara said.

  “They’re planning to cut the Ragamuffins off. Kill the wormhole leading there.”

  “Or it’s being used as a flagship for the Hongguo. Either way, it’s downstream for us.”

  Nashara nodded. “Can we dodge it?”

  “You and I can survive some high acceleration. The rest can’t.”

  Nashara folded her arms. “We’ll do what we can. Get them into the medical pods. Even if they black out hard, we can revive them.”

  “Be hard on the boy.”

  “Could be hard on the Raga to face an unexpected visit by the horde coming from upstream.”

  “True. If we’re lucky, maybe they’ll try and contact us.” Cascabel smiled. “Give us some bandwidth and you know we’ll spread.”

  Nashara smiled back. “Do it.”

  The Toucan Too dove for the downstream wormhole.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Kara stood up as Nashara walked into the room. “We’re moving? Have we left the station?” Kara had never been aboard a ship before, the noises and sounds were alien, scary. No one had told her what was going on, she’d remained near Jared’s pod, hoping all would turn out okay.

  But even these adults seemed nervous.

  “We need you to get in the medical pod next to your brother,” Nashara said.

  “Why? What’s going on? Am I sick?”

  “No, but you’ll be safer in there. We need to do some dangerous things.”

  Ijjy walked in. He looked nervous. “Why can’t I just join you in the cockpit for the acceleration?”

  “It’s going to be crushing.” Nashara walked over to the pod, then right through it. “Fuck.”

  Kara and Ijjy stared at her.

  “How’d you do that?” Kara asked. “Are you projecting yourself through lamina?” Kara tested the air around her, searching for lamina, searching for any information she could find. The air felt closed off by something large, dark, and slightly angry.

  “Don’t do that,” Nashara said. “You’re pushing at my mind.”

  “Oh.”

  “Please, now, get into your pods.”

  Ijjy closed himself in, shaking his head. “I don’t like this,” he said as the pod sealed.

  Kara crawled in, the fabric closing softly in on her and holding her secure as she lay down in the pod. It smelled like oranges.

  “Nashara?”

  The woman leaned over. “I’m Cascabel, not Nashara.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m in the lamina, it’s where my mind is now.” Cascabel waved her hand over the pod, and it sealed itself shut. “And I’m a second copy, there is another in the lamina. She’s keeping the name Nashara.”

  Kara looked through the filmy cover at Cascabel. She knew she couldn’t be heard, but said, “I’m scared.”

  Cascabel leaned over. “It’ll be okay, don’t be scared.”

  “You can hear me?”

  “I’m in the lamina.” Cascabel disappeared and her voice continued, “I’m all around you, in the ship. I just projected myself to your eyes. If you couldn’t see lamina overlays, you wouldn’t be able to see me.”

  “Wow.” Kara had never heard of anything like it. What amazing things these outsiders could do.

  “Yeah, that’s been my take on it too,” Cascabel snorted. “Don’t worry, I’ll stick with you here while we boost out, okay?”

  “Okay.” Kara closed her eyes as she felt weight slowly press against her. “What’s it like out there, out past Agathonosis?”

  “It’s ugly out there,” Cascabel said. “Not a whole lot of love for humans.”

 
; “But why?” Kara fought to breathe. “What did we ever do to them to make them hate us?”

  “Not hate. Hate implies emotional attachment.” There was a sigh. “It’s about control.”

  “The Satrap said we couldn’t control ourselves. That we had too much population.” A massive groaning sound shivered through everything. Something snapped. “What was that?”

  “Just another boost in speed. What the Satrapy fears is what we create. Before the Satrapy came to us, we flew our own craft, built our own computer programs.”

  “Lamina?”

  “An ancient form of it,” Cascabel said. “The Satraps believe that if technology accelerates and becomes uncontrollable, it will destroy everything. They seek to leash development, to leash our minds.”

  “So no humans are free?” Kara asked.

  “Freedmen mainly skulk around the edges of the Satrapy.” Cascabel cleared her throat. “There are habitats run by us, I think fifteen scattered all throughout. New Anegada and Chimson used to be human worlds. We terraformed them.”

  “So few?” Kara felt crushed.

  “About thirty million free humans.” The ship jumped left, slamming Kara against the pod and leaving bruises. “The other fifteen billion are ‘free’ but aboard habitats run by aliens, or Satraps, or on surface in reservations.”

  Kara closed her eyes. “Nowhere to run to.” Another brutal slam, to the right. “We’re being chased, aren’t we?”

  “The Raga can help. At the least they can help your brother.”

  It could be adult noise to reassure her. Kara looked at the scuffed, clear pod to her left. Would her brother make it through all of this? Would she?

  “Take a deep breath,” Cascabel said, breaking her thoughts.

  “Why is that?”

  “It’s time to sleep, things are about to get a bit ugly.”

  Something hissed behind her, the smell of roses filled the pod, and Kara drifted off as she began to feel so heavy it hurt to even try to move.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Just before Deng took the Shengfen Hao through the downstream wormhole after the Ragamuffins, Etsudo hailed him.

  “Thank you for your assistance,” Deng said, curt and to the point. “We don’t need your speedier vehicle. Your assistance was helpful, appreciated, and noted. We have other ships giving chase that should be able to catch up shortly.”

  Etsudo nodded. The Toucan Too had initiated a killing acceleration burn ahead of Deng’s very nose and missiles, but they would still eventually catch up. There was nowhere for them to go.

  Only Nashara could live through that. If anyone else was aboard that ship, they would be suffering cardiac arrest. He wanted to warn Deng about Nashara’s ability. But to do that would uncover his dark little secrets.

  No, let Deng find that out himself, if ever. Chances were more likely that the new, fast attack ships crossing toward the downstream wormhole right now would fire missiles into the Toucan Too and take care of that.

  “Be careful,” Etsudo said. “We don’t know the full extent of the Ragamuffin defenses. Keep your ship moving slow and your communications low-bandwidth.”

  That would have to do.

  Deng plunged through the wormhole, and the new might of the Hongguo continued to close in.

  “Bahul.” Etsudo looked over at the gamma-shift captain. “Keep us near the habitat. Just in case anything else comes out.”

  “Will do.” Bahul looked bored as he kept them floating nearby.

  Brandon floated through the cockpit door. “Afternoon.”

  Etsudo glanced up. “Afternoon. Change of shift?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll stay on,” Etsudo waved. “Grab an extra chair.”

  Brandon hung for a second, something flitting through his face. Anger?

  “Some of our ships are slowing down,” Bahul said. “Moving in towards the habitat.”

  “Really?” Etsudo verified that and frowned.

  “Oh,” Bahul said. “Etsudo?”

  And Etsudo saw what Bahul was looking at. Explosions ripped down the sides of the habitat. Pinprick after pinprick of light, but with a zoom of the cameras Etsudo could see water and air jetting out from the breached areas.

  “What is going on?” Etsudo breathed.

  Larger explosions almost blinded him. The center of the habitat slowly cracked open, vomiting dirt, trees, air, water, chunks of the layered hull.

  “Are there people aboard that?” Etsudo asked. “Or was it evacuated yet? What the hell is happening?”

  With only a few thousand miles between the habitat and his ship, Etsudo considered trying to move closer. If someone survived, maybe he could save them.

  More explosions rippled down the end of the habitat, splitting off one of the end caps from the rest of the dying structure. It looked like a giant metal cup losing its top, disgorging debris.

  “How many people lived in there?” Etsudo asked, horrified.

  “The last registry says a couple hundred thousand,” Brandon said.

  Hongguo ships moved closer, five tiny chips of reflected light. But instead of moving to search for survivors, the five ships passed around the debris for the separated end cap.

  “What are they doing?” Bahul asked.

  Etsudo knew. He zoomed in on the end cap to where the ships cast out nets. Three of them were smaller merchant ships, like the Takara Bune. The other two Etsudo recognized. Large, heavily weaponed sister ships to the Shengfen Hao: Datang Hao and Wuxing Hao. Even closer. He froze the image for his crew to see. “They’re recovering the Satrap.”

  “Is it dead?”

  “No, they’re perfectly fine in the vacuum,” Etsudo said. His father had talked about once helping build a new upstream habitat for a Satrap.

  “So that is a Satrap,” Brandon breathed. A lump of chitinous flesh almost a hundred feet long being pulled into the belly of the Datang Hao.

  “Behold our masters,” Etsudo whispered to himself.

  “Does it disturb you we aren’t included in any of this? We didn’t even know it was about to happen.” Brandon looked wounded.

  “We proved our worth,” Etsudo said.

  But Brandon didn’t look quite convinced. It’d be time to take him back to the room soon, Etsudo thought. Too much restlessness bubbled up from inside the man, restlessness that threatened Etsudo.

  Etsudo looked over at Bahul. “Get us moving, head downstream.”

  “We have business upstream,” Brandon said.

  “I want to observe what comes next,” Etsudo said. Something important was happening. Something big. And Etsudo wanted the pieces to the puzzle, because he had a feeling it would be important to his future.

  If the Satrapy had big changes in mind for humanity, Etsudo at least wanted enough warning to figure out what he wanted to do next.

  And with a small chance that Nashara still lived, he needed to be sure his deceit didn’t get uncovered.

  In the off chance she was captured alive or without unleashing her talent, Etsudo had been spending all his spare moments in his captain’s room, working hard to prepare his equipment in case it ever happened again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The Toucan Too whipped around Chilo, a choking-hot and heavily clouded planet offering no traffic except a series of science satellites jostling between the two orbiting wormholes. Moving from the upstream wormhole to the downstream took a morning, and at noon Nashara faced herself. “You holding on?”

  “Somewhat overwhelmed.” Cascabel rubbed her eyes and leaned back through a chair. “We have the lead. We’re almost there.”

  “At a cost.” The pods had dragged everyone back to life after the last set of transits. Fast in, bump down the momentum, correct course, slam downstream. But the pods estimated they would fail the next time Cascabel pushed the Toucan Too that hard, and Cascabel bet the ship would shake itself apart at those speeds as well. Ijjy, Kara, and Jared slept under sedation, blissfully unaware of it all.

>   “They’re alive, right? We’re just a few wormholes upstream. We’ll try to take it easy now,” Cascabel said. “But better we save the thousands than the three.”

  Nashara closed her eyes and agreed. “We should see a ship soon, though.” They were ever so close to old Ragamuffin haunts.

  Though what the handful of aging ships Ijjy described out in the end of this run could do for her she wasn’t sure.

  They continued on, each withdrawing into her own private space. Hours bled into each other as the Toucan Too drifted from wormhole to wormhole, each transit dangerously close to ripping the ship apart.

  But under Cascabel’s quick guidance, they always pulled through. The hours bled into a day, then a second day, and on the third Cascabel appeared with a smile.

  “Contact.” They had just two more transits to go; it made sense that they encountered a Ragamuffin ship.

  “I’ll get Ijjy up.”

  The Toucan Too shuddered as it slowed and the other ship paced them.

  Nashara kicked her way down the central shaft to the medical room, giving the command for Ijjy’s pod to open as she opened the door.

  He coughed, spitting up a tiny bit of blood. “My chest hurt something evil,” he complained.

  “You’ve had three cardiac failures,” Nashara said, helping him wobble out of the pod. “But a Raga ship’s pacing us. We’re two transits upstream.”

  “That go be the Starfunk Ayatollah, I bet you anything,” Ijjy said. “I know the captain.”

  “Let’s get you strapped into the cockpit.”

  They coasted back, and Nashara helped Ijjy secure himself. “Cascabel, let’s talk to the ship.”

  Her other self appeared. “Is that a good idea?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do we want to be taking over Ragamuffin ships?” Cascabel asked.

  “There are controls built in regarding Ragalamina,” Nashara muttered.

  “But if they’re using Satrapic technology . . .”

  Ijjy shook his head. “Nah, all homegrown, all the time. Just open the channel and make sure I visible.”

  Cascabel shrugged. “Okay. And in one, two, three: the Starfunk Ayatollah’s on.”