A Liaden Universe® Constellation: Volume Two

by Sharon Lee

  “Guess that’s it ’til the next time,” he said.

  Miri shrugged. The ’bike belonged to Jerim Snarth, who’d got it off a guy who worked at the spaceport, who’d got it from—don’t ask don’t tell. Miri’s guess was that the ’bike’s original owner had gotten fed up with it breaking down every third use and left it on a scrap pile.

  On the other hand, Jerim was good for the repair money, most of the time, which meant Penn’s dad paid Miri on time, so she supposed she oughta hope for more breakdowns.

  “Must’ve wrapped every wire in that thing two or three times by now,” she said to Penn, and walked over to the diagnostics board. Pressure and speed had come up to spec and were standing steady.

  “My dad said let it run a quarter-hour and chart the pressures.”

  Miri nodded, saw that Penn’d already set the timer and turned around.

  “What’s to do next?” she asked.

  Penn shrugged his shoulders. “The ’bike was everything on the schedule,” he said, sounding apologetic. “Me, I’m supposed to get the place swept up.”

  Miri sighed to herself. “Nothing on tomorrow, either?”

  “I don’t think so,” Penn muttered, feeling bad though it was no doing of his—or his dad’s. Some extra pay would’ve been welcome, though.

  Extra pay was always welcome.

  “I’ll move on down to Trey’s, then,” she said, going over to the wall where the heavy wool shirt that served as her coat hung on a nail next to Penn’s jacket. “See if there’s anything needs done there.”

  She had to stretch high on her toes to reach her shirt—damn nails were set too high. Or she was set too low, more like it.

  Sighing again, she pulled on the shirt and did up the buttons. If Trey didn’t have anything—and it was likely he wouldn’t—she’d walk over to Dorik’s Bake Shop. Dorik always needed small work done—trouble was, she only ever paid in goods, and it was money Miri was particularly interested in.

  She turned ’round. Penn was already unlimbering the broom, moving stiff. Took a hiding, she guessed. Penn got some grief on the street—for his glasses and for being so good with his figures and his reading and such, which he had to be with his dad owning a mechanical repair shop and Penn expected to help out with the work—when there was work. Hell, even her father could read, and figure, too; though he was more likely to be doing the hiding than taking it.

  “Seen your dad lately?” Penn asked, like he’d heard her thinking. He looked over his shoulder, glasses glinting. “My dad’s got the port wanting somebody for a cargo crane repair, and your dad’s the best there is for that.”

  If he could be found, if he was sober when found, if he could be sobered up before the customer got impatient and went with second best . . .

  Miri shook her head.

  “Ain’t seen him since last month,” she replied and deliberately didn’t add anything more.

  “Well,” he said after a second. “If you see him . . . ”

  “I’ll let him know,” she said, and raised a hand. “See you.”

  “Right.” Penn turned back to the broom, and Miri moved toward the hatch that gave out onto the alley.

  * * *

  Outside, the air was pleasantly cool. It had rained recently, so the breeze was grit-free. On the other hand, the alley was slick and treacherous underfoot.

  Miri walked briskly, absent-mindedly sure-footed, keeping a close eye on the various duck-ins and hiding spots. This close to Kalhoon’s Repair, the street was usually OK; Penn’s dad paid the local clean-up crew a percentage to make sure there was no trouble. Still, sometimes the crew didn’t come by, and sometimes they missed, and sometimes trouble herded out of one spot and into another.

  She sighed as she walked, wishing Penn hadn’t mentioned her father. He never came home anymore except when he was smoked or drunk. Or both. And last time—it’d been bad last time, the worst since the time he broke her arm, and her mother—her tiny, sickly, soft-talking mother—had gone at him with a piece of the chair he’d busted to let ’em know he was in.

  Beat him right across the apartment and out the door, she had, and after he was in the hall, screamed for all the neighbors to hear, “You’re none of mine, Chock Robertson! I deny you!”

  That’d been pretty good, that denying business, and for a while it looked like it was even gonna work.

  Then Robertson, he’d come back in the middle of the night, drunk, smoked, and ugly, and started looking real loud for the rent money.

  Miri’d gotten out of her bed in a hurry and run out in her shirt, legs bare, to find him ripping a cabinet off the wall. He dropped it when he saw her.

  “Where’s my money?” he roared, and took a swing.

  She ducked back out of the way, and in that second, her mother was there—and this time she had a knife.

  “Leave us!” she said, and though she hadn’t raised her voice, the way she said it sent a chill right through Miri’s chest.

  Chock Robertson, though, never’d had no sense.

  He swung on her; she ducked and slashed, raising blood on his swinging arm. Roaring, he swung again, and this time he connected.

  Her mother went across the room, hit the wall and slid, boneless, to the floor, the knife falling out of her hand.

  Her father laughed and stepped forward.

  Miri yelled, jumped, hit the floor rolling—and came up with the knife.

  She crouched, the way she’d seen the street fighters do, and looked up—a fair ways up—into her father’s face.

  “You touch her,” she hissed, “and I’ll kill you.”

  The wonder of the moment being, she thought as she turned out of Mechanic Street and onto Grover, was that she’d meant it.

  It must’ve shown on her face because her father didn’t keep on coming and beat her ’til all her bones were broke.

  “Where’s the money?” he asked, sounding almost sober.

  “We paid the rent,” she snarled, which was a lie, but he took it, for a second wonder, and—just walked away. Out of the apartment, down the hall and into the deepest pit of hell, as Miri had wished every day after.

  Her mother . . .

  That smack had broke something, though Braken didn’t find any busted ribs. The cough, though, that was worse—and she was spittin’ up blood with it.

  Her lungs, Braken had said, and nothin’ she could do, except maybe ask one of Torbin’s girls for a line on some happy juice.

  The dope eased the cough, though it didn’t stop the blood, and Boss Latimer’s security wouldn’t have her in the kitchen no more, which meant no wages, nor any leftovers from the fatcat’s table.

  Miri was walking past Grover’s Tavern and it was a testament to how slim pickin’s had been that the smell of sour beer and hot grease made her mouth water.

  She shook her head, tucked her hands in her pockets and stretched her legs. ’Nother couple blocks to Trey’s. Maybe there’d be something gone funny in the ductwork that he was too big to get in, but that Miri could slide through just fine.

  Even if there wasn’t work, there’d be coffeetoot, thick and bitter from havin’ been on the stove all day, and Trey was sure to give her a mug of the stuff, it bein’ his idea of what was—

  A shadow stepped out from behind the tavern’s garbage bin. Miri dodged, but her father had already grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her back. Agony screamed through her shoulder and she bit her tongue, hard. Damn if she’d let him hear her yell. Damn if she would.

  “Here she is,” Robertson shouted over her head. “Gimme the cash!”

  Out of the tavern’s doorway came another man, tall and fat, his coat embroidered with posies and his beard trimmed and combed. He smiled when he saw her, and gold teeth gleamed.

  “Mornin’, Miri.”

  “Torbin,” she gasped—and bit her tongue again as her father twisted her arm.

  “That’s Mr. Torbin, bitch,” snarled her father.

  Torbin shook his head. “I pay
less for damaged goods,” he said.

  Robertson grunted. “You want my advice, keep her tied up and hungry. She’s bad as her ol’ lady for sneaking after a man and doin’ him harm.”

  Torbin frowned. “I know how to train my girls, thanks. Let ’er go.”

  Miri heard her father snort a laugh.

  “Gimme my money first. After she’s yours, you can chase her through every rat hole on Latimer’s turf.”

  “But she ain’t gonna run away, are you, Miri?” Torbin pulled his hand out of a pocket and showed her a gun. Not a homemade one-shot, but a real gun, like the boss’ security had.

  “Because,” Torbin was saying, “if you try an’ run away, I’ll shoot you in the leg. You don’t gotta walk good to work for me.”

  “Don’t wanna work for you,” she said, which was stupid, and Robertson yanked her arm up to let her know it.

  “That’s too bad,” said Torbin. “’cause your dad here’s gone to a lot a trouble an’ thought for you, an’ found you a steady job. But, hey, soon’s you make enough to pay off the loan an’ the interest, you can quit. I don’t hold no girl ’gainst her wants.”

  He grinned. “An’ you—you’re some lucky girl. Got me a man who pays a big bonus for a redhead, an’ other one likes the youngers. You’re, what—’leven? Twelve, maybe?”

  “Sixteen,” Miri snarled. This time, the pain caught her unawares, and a squeak got out before she ground her teeth together.

  “She’s thirteen,” Robertson said, and Torbin nodded.

  “That’ll do. Let ’er go, Chock.”

  “M’money,” her father said again, and her arm was gonna pop right outta the shoulder, if—

  “Right.” Torbin pulled his other hand out of its pocket, a fan of greasy bills between his fingers. “Twenty cash, like we agreed on.”

  Her father reached out a shaky hand and crumbled the notes in his fist.

  “Good,” said Torbin. “Miri, you ’member what I told you. Be a good girl and we’ll get on. Let ’er go, Chock.”

  He pushed her hard and let go of her arm. He expected her to fall, probably, and truth to tell, she expected it herself, but managed to stay up and keep moving, head down, straight at Torbin.

  She rammed her head hard into his crotch, heard a high squeak. Torbin went down to his knees, but got one arm around her; she twisted and dodged, was past, felt the grip on her shirt, and had time to yell before she was slammed into the side of the garbage bin. Her sight grayed, and out of the mist she saw a fist coming toward her. She dropped to the mud and rolled, sobbing, heard another shout and a hoarse cough, and above it all a third and unfamiliar voice, yelling—

  “Put the gun down and stand where you are or by the gods I’ll shoot your balls off, if you got any!”

  Miri froze where she was, belly flat to the ground, and turned her face a little to see—

  Chock Robertson standing still, hands up at belt level, fingers wide and empty; and Torbin standing kinda half-bent, hands hanging empty, his gun on the ground next to his shoe.

  A rangy woman in a neat gray shirt and neat gray trousers tucked tight into shiny black boots was holding a gun as shiny as the boots easy and businesslike in her right hand. Her hair was brown and her eyes were hard and the expression on her face was of a woman who’d just found rats in the larder.

  “Kick that over here,” she said to Torbin.

  He grunted, but gave the gun a kick that put it next to the woman’s foot. She put her shiny boot on it and nodded slightly. “Obliged.”

  “You all right, girl?” she asked then, but not like it mattered much.

  Miri swallowed. Her arm hurt, and her head did, and her back where she’d caught the metal side of the container. Near’s she could tell, though, everything that ought to moved. And she was breathing.

  “’m OK,” she said.

  “Then let’s see you stand up and walk over here,” the woman said.

  She pushed herself up onto her knees, keeping a wary eye on Robertson and Torbin, got her feet under her and walked up to the woman, making sure she kept out of the stare of her weapon.

  The brown eyes flicked to her face, the hard mouth frowning.

  “I know you?”

  “Don’t think so,” Miri answered, “ma’am.”

  One side of the mouth twisted up a little, then the eyes moved and the gun, too.

  “Stay right there until I tell you otherwise,” she snapped, and her father sank back flat on his feet, hands held away from his sides.

  “Get behind me, girl,” the woman said, and Miri ducked around and stood facing that straight, gray-clad back.

  She oughta run, she thought; get to one of her hiding places before Torbin and her father figured out that the two of them together could take a single woman, but curiosity and some stupid idea that if it came down to it, she should help the person who’d helped her kept her there and watching.

  “Now,” the woman said briskly, “you gents can take yourselves peaceably off, or I can shoot the pair of you. It really don’t matter to me which it is.”

  “The girl belongs to me!” Torbin said. “Her daddy pledged her for twenty cash.”

  “Nice of him,” said the woman with the gun.

  “Girl,” she snapped over her shoulder, “if you’re keen on going for whore, you go ahead with him. I won’t stop you.”

  “I ain’t,” Miri said, and was ashamed to hear her voice shake.

  “That’s settled then.” The woman moved her gun in a easy nod at Torbin. “Seems to me you oughta get your money back from her daddy and buy yourself another girl.”

  “She’s mine to see settled!” roared Robertson, leaning forward—and then leaning back as the gun turned its stare on him.

  “Girl says she ain’t going for whore,” the woman said lazily. “Girl’s got a say in what she will and won’t do to feed herself. Girl!”

  Miri’s shoulders jerked. “Ma’am?”

  “You find yourself some work to do, you make sure your daddy gets his piece, hear?”

  “No’m,” Miri said, hotly. “When I find work, I’ll make sure my mother gets her piece. She threw him out and denied him. He’s no look-out of ours.”

  There was a small pause, and Miri thought she saw a twitch along one level shoulder.

  “That a fact?” the woman murmured, but didn’t wait for any answer before rapping out, “You gents got places to be. Go there.”

  Amazingly, they went, Torbin not even askin’ for his gun back.

  “You still there, girl?”

  Miri blinked at the straight back. “Yes’m.”

  The woman turned and looked down her.

  “Now the question is, why?” she asked. “You coulda been next turf over by now.”

  “Thought I might could help,” Miri said, feeling stupid now for thinking it, “if things got uglier.”

  The hard eyes didn’t change and the mouth didn’t smile. “Ready to wade right in, were you?” she murmured, and just like before, didn’t wait for an answer.

  “What’s your name, girl?”

  “Miri Robertson.”

  “Huh. What’s your momma’s name?”

  Miri looked up into the woman’s face, but there wasn’t no reading it, one way or the other.

  “Katy Tayzin,” she said.

  The face did change then, though Miri couldn’t’ve said exactly how, and the level shoulders looked to lose a little of their starch.

  “You’re the spit of her,” the woman said, and put her fingers against her neat gray chest. “Name’s Lizardi. You call me Liz.”

  Miri blinked up at her. “You know my mother?”

  “Used to,” Liz said, sliding her gun away neat into its belt-holder. “Years ago that’d be. How’s she fare?”

  “She’s sick,” Miri said, and hesitated, then blurted. “You know anybody’s got work—steady work? I can do some mechanical repair, and ductwork and chimney clearing and—”

  Liz held up a broad hand. Miri stopped,
swallowing, and met the brown eyes steady as she could.

  “Happens I have work,” Liz said slowly. “It’s hard and it’s dangerous, but I’m proof it can be good to you. If you want to hear more, come on inside and take a sup with me. Grover does a decent stew, still.”

  Miri hesitated. “I don’t—”

  Liz shook her head. “Tradition. Recruiting officer always buys.”

  Whatever that meant, Miri thought, and then thought again about Torbin and her father being on the loose.

  “Your momma all right where she is?” Liz asked and Miri nodded.

  “Staying with Braken and Kale,” she said. “Won’t nobody get through Kale.”

  “Good. You come with me.”

  * * *

  “Grew up here,” Liz said in her lazy way, while Miri worked through her second bowl of stew. “Boss Peterman’s territory it was then. Wasn’t much by way of work then, neither. Me, I was little bit older’n you, workin’ pick-up and on the side. Your momma, she was baker over—well, it ain’t here now, but there used to be a big bake shop over on Light Street. It was that kept us, but we was looking to do better. One day, come Commander Feriola, recruitin’, just like I’m doin’ now. I signed up for to be a soldier. Your momma . . .” She paused, and took a couple of minutes to look around the room. Miri finished her stew and regretfully pushed the bowl away.

  “Your momma,” Liz said, “she wouldn’t go off-world. Her momma had told her there was bad things waitin’ for her if she did, and there wasn’t nothin’ I could say would move her. So I went myself, and learned my trade, and rose up through the rank, and now here I’m back, looking for a few bold ones to fill in my own command.”

  Miri bit her lip. “What’s the pay?”

  Liz shook her head. “That was my first question, too. It don’t pay enough, some ways. It pays better’n whorin’, pays better’n odd jobs. You stand a good chance of gettin’ dead from it, but you’ll have a fightin’ chance. And if you come out on the livin’ side of that chance, and you’re smart, you’ll have some money to retire on and not have to come back to Surebleak never again.”

  “And my pay,” Miri persisted, thinking about the drug Braken thought might be had, over to Boss Abram’s turf, that might stop the blood and heal her mother’s lungs. “I can send that home?”