by S. E. Smith
She began to convulse just as he got her to the bedroom door. He let her legs drop so she could throw up without hurting herself, but he couldn’t catch enough of the mess with his cybernetic hand to keep it from soaking her shirt and pants. The stomach-churning smell assaulted his nose, but as a former battlefield medic and current household servant to nine pets, he was used to dealing with all sorts of unpleasant odors and substances.
By the time he got her into the fresher, she was barely responsive.
He sprayed her off as best he could, but she wasn’t wearing her waterproof work tunic, and was soon soaked and shivering.
Telling himself he was looking but not seeing, he removed everything but her underwear, then draped her with one of his blankets and carried her to his bed. He quickly found her veterinary scanner and used it on her.
And since he was already being unethical by examining her without her permission, he evaluated her bad left leg, with its deep, ugly scars and distorted tendons and muscles. He swore in several languages as he dressed her in one of his tunics, then covered her up with more blankets. Since she had been a Concordance citizen, her kidnappers—he refused to call them bondholders—could have had her injury fixed for free anywhere in the Concordance. They’d purposefully left her untreated for years.
He couldn’t ever return to the Jumpers again, and he was in no position to organize a mission against Bethnee’s captors, but he did send a fervent prayer out to the constant stars to exact the justice he couldn’t.
Chapter Six
GDAT 3241.255
Bethnee woke to unfamiliar… everything. The soft glowlight on the wall, the cat purring on her chest, the furry body at her side, the too-long sleeve of her shirt. Not to mention, a room that looked like the shell of an interstellar ship’s stateroom.
The bed shifted, and a golden furry face appeared above hers.
“Hello, Trouble.” Her voice sounded raspy and her throat hurt. The dog licked at her cheek, then pushed off from the bed and left.
The furry warmth at her side stirred. Shiza, the square-jawed foo dog with the perpetual cute grimace and drooling habit, scrambled to his feet and shook himself, leaving a drifting cloud of curly golden fur.
Bethnee cautiously reached out with her talent to Delta, the cat on her chest, just to make sure she could. She’d exhausted all her reserves to save Kivo because she knew how much Axur loved the beast. She didn’t even know if she’d succeeded. Or what time it was. Or how she came to be mostly naked in Axur’s big bed. That realization made her feel aware, but not wary. She put the thought aside for later.
She sat up and discovered a veterinary fluids pump attached to the back of her hand. She was still staring at it stupidly when Axur appeared at the bedroom door.
“How do you feel?” He touched a control on the wall to make the lights brighter.
“Like hammered horse shi… “ She trailed off as she got a good look at Axur. She’d never seen him without winter clothes and his heavy cloak, and now there he stood, damp and naked except for the towel around his trim waist and defined abdominals. He’d tied back the coiled strands of his long, frizzy hair, revealing a well-muscled chest that was a blend of warm brown skin, a few scars to give it character, and a smooth transition to his cybernetic arm, with its mismatched synthskin patches and exposed biometal. “You’re stunning.”
He blinked, clearly nonplussed.
“Sorry.” She couldn’t stop staring. Didn’t want to, in fact. “From the way you talk, I’d thought you looked like a corroded, spare-parts cyborg from the serial sagas.” That was probably the lamest thing she’d ever said. “Sorry. I’ll shut up now.”
He started to speak, but stopped himself. He seemed not to know what to do with his hands. “I’m not standing too close?”
“No.” She tried to puzzle it out. Humans usually felt like phantoms to her, like she was listening to the wrong frequency. “Maybe I’m still sick from talent blowback sickness, but right now, you’re not a ghost, you’re solid. Like one of Nuñez’s yaks.”
He laughed out loud.
She shrugged, embarrassed. “Sorry.”
“I’m flattered. Truly.” His warm smile made her believe it. “Back to my original question. Your color is much better, and your temperature stabilized a while ago. How are you?”
“I’ll live. How’s Kivo?”
“See for yourself.” He turned aside, and Kivo stepped forward, looking as healthy as she’d ever seen him. Relief flooded through her. He launched himself toward her to put his first set of paws on the bed and joyfully lick her face.
“Yes, all right.” She rubbed his ears. “I’m happy to see you’re alive, too.” The aches in all her joints and the post-fever lethargy melted away at the affection Kivo was broadcasting. In that moment, she could readily believe Axur’s theory that Kivo was an empath, just like Nuñez.
“I cleaned your clothes. Your earwire and percomp are on the table.”
She had a hazy memory of a brightly lit room, and throwing up. “What time is it?”
“Eleven thirteen. Should be light out, but you can barely tell through the nonstop snow.” At their latitude and a ten-day from the winter solstice, they got less than five hours of sun per day.
She was loath to leave the soft comfort of Axur’s loving pets and his big bed, but she’d already kept him from it for ten hours, and she had to return Nuñez’s flitter and get home. “Could I impose on you for the use of your fresher and something to eat?”
“Please don’t kill me, but while you were unconscious, I examined your bad leg.” Axur sat down at the other end of his small couch and sipped coffee from a large mug.
A flare of unease spiked, but she smothered it. Nothing had happened. Axur was her friend who talked to her every day. He wasn’t a brutal man who drugged her and inflicted degradation and pain. Axur was a warm, strong, stolid yak. “And?”
“Completely repairable in any medical center with tissue-cloning facilities.”
“And completely unaffordable. Homesteaders like me have to pay hard credit. Even settlers like Nuñez have to co-pay. This isn’t the Concordance, yet.” The swirling snow outside the window made her feel cold. She wasn’t used to windows. “I have a better chance of winning the galactic lottery. Or I would, if I had enough hard credit to buy a ticket.”
“I know, so I have a deal for you. You give me Serena, and come every ten-day to check on my pets and help me with two-person jobs. In exchange, I’ll design a procedure my autodoc can handle to reattach the torn ligament and repair the lateral quadriceps muscle that gives you the most grief. You’d have to stay off it for the day and eat a lot to compensate for the rapid-heal, but it should improve your mobility and strength.”
Her jaw dropped. “You have an autodoc?”
“Yeah, it came with the freighter. Running low on basic chems and anesthetics, though. I’ll need more afterward.”
“Holy hells. Do you have any idea what a working autodoc is worth? And with your medic training and language skills? Nuñez was right. You don’t have to hide up here. Move into town, and they’d build you the clinic of your dreams. The settlement company couldn’t stop them or even take a cut.”
A grim look settled on his face. “I can’t.” The conviction in his tone left no room for argument.
She would have liked to point out that he was obviously lonely, based on how often he pinged her just to chat, but he knew what he could and couldn’t do. She disliked it when Nuñez pushed her, so she wasn’t going to do that to her only other friend on the planet.
“You’ll need your autodoc supplies for yourself, so no deal on that. I’ll take the rest of the trade, though—Serena for the extra pair of hands and veterinary care.” The wolf in question was out in the blizzard, frolicking like she was a spring-loaded mountain goat instead of a dignified guardian. “Your place is better for her than mine.”
He frowned and reached for his cup, but stopped to examine the exposed biometal knuckles of
his cybernetic hand.
She moved Shiza, the warmth-seeking foo dog, off her lap, then stood and stepped into her boots. Alpha, the darkest cat, helped by batting at the decorative lacings. Beta jumped her, Delta jumped Beta, and a battle royale ensued. It was a wonder Axur’s living quarters weren’t a constant shamble.
She glanced at Axur, expecting to see him smiling at his silly cats, but he was looking up at her pensively.
“Ever heard of a Citizen Protection Service black-box project?”
“Er, maybe?” She dredged up the memory. “Something about secret weapons?”
“I am one.”
She had no idea what he was talking about, but his bleak expression made her want to comfort him. “Because of your cybernetics? Lots of Jumpers have those, don’t they? You can’t all be weapons.”
“Because of what’s in my cybernetics. The CPS secretly ‘volunteered’ me for a research group’s project that turned me into a continually broadcasting comm unit. I could probably uplink directly to the high-orbit galactic comms buoy from here.”
“I’m sorry, I’m not following.” She touched the earwire he’d given her and convinced her to wear, even when sleeping. “Is that how you made the Axur-net?”
He stood and turned to her, shoving his hands in his pockets. If she took one step closer, she could almost touch him. It was the closest she’d been to him without the fear taking over her motor control to make her tremble with the imperative to run, to hide. She gave herself a mental shake to refocus on what Axur was saying.
“...first in my squad to try out the new, better battery in my cybernetic legs. I woke up in a space station in a high-security research clinic, with a new cybernetic arm that I didn’t need, and a satellite uplink built into me. The assholes stole me and altered the records to make it look like I’d signed on for their project. They told me their goal was to improve field communications for Jumpers, but I soon figured out the real purpose was to intercept, decrypt, and twist enemy comms.”
Her sluggish brain finally put together a piece of the puzzle. “Your cloak. It blocks your broadcast.” She looked around at Axur’s quarters, made out of the pieces of an interstellar ship. “This is incalloy, for transit space. That’s why you don’t have to cover up in here.”
“Yeah. I added a countervalent grid, powered by the ship’s thousand-year batteries. It scatters my signal.”
“Why do you need to?”
“Because ten months ago, I stole this freighter and escaped. The CPS wants me back, and not to return me to my squad.” He held up his cybernetic hand. “I’m still tuned up to enhanced Jumper speed and strength, which is illegal outside the Corps. I really am a cyborg. Point is, my cybernetics have enough experimental nanotech to buy Del’Arche’s entire settlement debt. I’m the only survivor of ten other ‘volunteers.’” He rocked on his heels. “When my signal pings any official comm system, the system records my unique comm signature. If that got back to the main Concordance net, it would likely trigger a galaxy-wide detain-and-restrain order on me that says I’m dangerously delusional, and offers a juicy reward to keep me iced until the fastest CPS cruiser can get here.”
“I’m sorry, Axur. That farkin’ flatlines.” She didn’t know what else to say. No minder talent in the universe could change the past, and she didn’t know any minder forecasters who could advise him on how to improve his future. She limped to her vet bag on the table to check that it was sealed tight.
Axur grabbed his coat and step into his combat-style boots. “I’ll clear the path again and warm up the flitter.”
She eyed his everyday work pants. “Do your legs feel cold?”
“No, they’re internally heated to normal body temperature. My processor interface tells me what the external temperature is.” He smiled ruefully. “My ass and dangly bits get cold, though.”
She laughed at his phrasing. He had the oddest euphemisms for genitalia.
He bunched his hair on top of his head so he could slip on his fancy transparent snow hood. “Some Jumpers choose to have the full input-to-nerve mapping done, to make the synthskin and cybernetics feel as real as possible, but I didn’t want to be distracted by phantom sensations.” He flexed his cybernetic hand. “The researchers did it for my arm without asking what I wanted. After I landed, I had to hack into my own processor to make it quit telling me about the burns. Even though I have the key, it took me days because of the evolving cryptogon.”
He lifted his heavy cloak and pushed his head through the round opening, then sealed it. “I’ll be on earwire.”
He slid open the door to reveal a snow-covered wolf, who danced back in excitement when she realized Axur was coming outside.
His tone signaled in her earwire. “Feel free to raid the cabinets or cold box if you’re still hungry. You had a stressful night.” Heavy breaths of exertion punctuated his words.
“I’m good. I’ve been looking at your decor. Very mad techno. Did they teach you that in Jumper school?”
“Some. I learn languages more quickly when I busy my hands. The CPS researchers gave me comm specialist courses, and started training me to use the new tech I’m carrying. Even trained me how to repair my cybernetics. When they gave me control during testing and forgot to turn it off over lunch, I cracked their internal security and read everything, not just the sanitized version they gave me, which is how I found out about the nine other test-subject fatalities. I sure as hell didn’t want to be number ten.”
“I’m glad you escaped.” As she said the words, she realized her life would be immeasurably less interesting without Axur in it. Because he wasn’t there in front of her, it was easier to ask the question that had been bothering her. “Are you staying away from Tanimai because you’re afraid someone in town would betray you to the CPS?” Someone like Nuñez, or her.
“No. If and when the CPS captures me, they wouldn’t care who they else hurt, including anyone they thought I’d shared secrets with. Out here, they only catch me, and leave the town alone.”
The implications of his story sank in. “You’re just like Kivo. You’re a failed experiment they want to dissect.” She took his silence to mean he’d already thought of that. “Why did you tell me all this now?”
The answer was a long time in coming.
“Because if you come up here someday and I’m gone, I wanted you to know that it wasn’t my choice.”
The thought of losing him to that fate terrified her worse than the fear response when the man got too close. And if that wasn’t a complete contradiction, she didn’t know what was. She felt like she ought to say something. “I would take care of your animals.”
“Thank you. They’re my family.”
“Don’t you have any of your own?” Not that he could go home while he was still a fugitive, but maybe he could see them again someday. People lived to a hundred and seventy and more with modern medicine.
“Dead. Con-Kella Pandemic of 3215. I was raised in group homes. The Jumper Corps became my family after that. What about you?”
“Only child, or at least I was. I made friends with every stray animal in the neighborhood, and figured I’d work at a rescue shelter.” She gave a self-deprecatory laugh. “And look at me now, on top of the world.”
“I’m at the barn. I’ll send Serena to walk you down to the flitter.”
“Okay.” She took a deep breath and spoke before she lost her nerve. “You could come with me.”
“Why, are you feeling sick?”
“No, it’s just… I don’t… You should...” The unexpected rise of emotion tangled her tongue. “My place is hard to find and well protected. If I show you where it is, and you need somewhere to hide, you could go there.”
The silence stretched. She wished she could see his face, because maybe he wasn’t interested, or thought the idea was lame.
“Okay.”
An hour later, she landed the flitter on the snow-dusted gravel of her homestead’s landing pad. Nuñez had told her to keep t
he flitter until the next day. The storm had finally stopped, but left deep snow behind.
Bethnee checked her security system’s activity monitor, then opened the flitter doors. She collected her kit, locked the doors, and caught Axur’s eye. “Stay on my trail so you don’t get lost.”
She led the way up the path to her home. Under the obscuring snow, it looked like ramshackle stacks of logs between a cluster of tall boulders. Kivo whined excitedly as she opened her front door and led him and Axur-the-yak inside. He was only her second human visitor. She’d have never believed she’d ever allow a man into her house if she hadn’t been living it at that moment.
She turned on the lights, then pointed to the hooks by the door. “Hang your stuff there.”
She’d already sent her talent out to her animals to tell them she was coming, and warn them about the stranger. Axur’s tribe comprised extraordinary, valuable pets. Hers were civilization’s discards, like her.
After Axur wrestled off his coat while leaving his shielding cloak in place, he stepped into the cabin’s common area to look around. She’d purposefully left this part of her home looking primitive and half-dilapidated to fool any would-be intruders. She saw on his face the moment he started noticing the little features that would make an uninvited guest’s life miserable.
“Impressive.” He gave her a sly smile. “I’m glad I’m not your enemy.”
“There’s more outside. I’ll show you before dark. I add to them when I get a new idea. I need a place to feel safe.”
“Copy that.” He tilted his head toward the back, hidden in shadows. “That where you really live?”