Gravlander

by Erik Wecks

  She managed a smile in return when the woman finished distributing her treats and wandered bowlegged and footsore back to the stall.

  From the first nibble, the steamed bun became one of the most delicious things Jo had ever tasted, comparing favorably to even the long-ago banquets at the palace on Athena.

  Overwhelmed by this small act of generosity, Jo blinked rapidly. As she watched the woman hobble back to her booth, she felt a deep conviction that she belonged here among the misfits and the outcasts. These were her kith and kin, the people who didn’t fit in the Unity corporate system—broken and downtrodden in a universe that had cast them aside.

  Settle down, Jo. You’re tired. See if it all looks so beautiful after you’ve had some sleep. In her eleven days aboard the Clarion, Jo had found that her emotions were all over the place. She was so exhausted that she found herself working overtime, and she had to try to remember to take her thoughts with a grain of salt.

  However, for the first time since she left the Ghost Fleet for Korg Haran, Jo felt hopeful for her future. Here was a place where medicine would be appreciated, where her skills could be put to good use. She looked around, seeing with fresh eyes a place that had once frightened her. It wasn’t as if she had grown suddenly impervious. She knew that danger still waited beneath the undulating life. Yet she felt confident that she could handle anything Tortuga might throw her way.

  Her attention eventually fell on the group of children, now finished with their food and slightly messier for it. One girl had a large streak of sauce spread on each side of her mouth. The gaggle was busy organizing a game.

  They were a rag-tag lot, with holes in their pants and shoes worn to nothing. Jo even saw one child going barefoot. Again, she had the sense that these were just the kind of children she wanted to help.

  It took a few minutes of observation for Jo to begin to get the gist of the game they played. It seemed to revolve around capturing a small ribbon of cloth with a rock tied in the end of it. At the beginning of the round, one child, usually last round’s winner, tossed the rock with the ribbon somewhere away from where the group stood behind a line. Then each child would toss small stones toward the ribbon. They would then go stand by these marker stones and toss them again until one child got close enough to reach down and pick up the ribbon. That child was declared the winner, and the game would start again. From there, things got much more confusing.

  There were clearly rules about how far you could throw your marker stone. If it landed too close to your last position, you had to throw again from behind the start line; too far—and this seemed to mean further than anyone else—and next time you ended up throwing your stone from the back of the pack. The game punished greed and seemed to reward coming in second—under the radar, as it were.

  Jo watched for a few minutes, jealous of the children’s ability to abandon themselves to play. Noticing her gaze, one of the younger girls, perhaps all of four, gave Jo a toothy smile that radiated as much from her eyes as her lips. Jo returned the smile to the brown-haired child with a drippy nose.

  When the round finished, the little girl approached and took Jo’s hand in her soft but dirty palm. Internally, Jo cringed, but the girl’s generous smile kept her from pulling away; such trust could not be rejected.

  Jo soon found herself standing behind a line drawn in the dust, while an earnest girl in pigtails organized the group and fought with a little boy about the proper rules for the next round of Dropstones.

  With a significant advantage in height and coordination, Jo found herself working diligently not to win. She was just standing up after overthrowing her target for the third time when she came face-to-face with a familiar but unwelcome purple shirt. Before she could even move, the pimp Chapman had his arm around her shoulder.

  It was a confrontation she had anticipated when she arrived back on Tortuga, but she hadn’t expected it to come so quickly. Her palms began to sweat, and her heart raced. She forced herself to stand up straight under the weight of his unwelcome arm. Her eyes darted through the crowd, looking for Chapman’s henchmen, but at the moment, he seemed to be alone. She looked him in the eye.

  He spoke first. “I don’t think you and I hit it off on the right foot, little angel. How about I buy you a drink and make it up to you?” Chapman’s smile left his dead eyes far behind, a contrast all the more apparent to Jo with a wholehearted four-year-old now clinging to her pants.

  Jo reached down and put what she hoped was a reassuring hand on the little girl’s head but kept her eyes on Chapman. She tried to sound noncommittal, beaten down. “I’m not really that kind of person, but I’m down on my luck. I need a place to stay.” She hesitated, and when she spoke again, she let her voice crack just a little. “I thought you might be able to help.”

  Cooing his concern, Chapman stepped up beside Jo and put his arm around her. Brushing off the young girl, he guided his new charge away from the game, a miasma of cloying scent trailing behind him. Chapman held Jo to his side as he purred, “Listen, angel, the first time I saw you I knew you were something special, something valuable.”

  Jo wanted to rage or laugh, or both, at the ludicrous comment, but given the delicacy of her situation, she kept the impulses in check. Instead, she said in her most coy and naive voice, “Really?”

  “Oh, yeah. Truly. You’re my kind.”

  Seeing that Chapman had led her into a particularly crowded part of the market, Jo pulled the pimp to a halt. She tried to sound both skeptical and flattered all at the same time. “You’re just saying that.”

  The taller man turned to face her. He put both hands on her shoulders and looked down at her. “No, darling, I really mean it.”

  Jo took a half step closer to the lying swine, drawing him in. She forced herself to look up into his eyes and pulled out all the stops, trying to sound entranced. “You really mean that? You think I’m … beautiful?” She sounded as wide-eyed as a thirteen-year-old.

  The jackass responded to her innocent advances just as Jo expected him to. He stepped forward, bringing his head down to give her a kiss.

  Jo stood there for a moment, pretending to hesitate. All at once, she melted into his embrace, placing her hand behind his neck to keep him close.

  The cutting torch slipped easily from the sheath on her forearm. She let her hand brush against Chapman’s groin. The torch snapped on, just as his lips were about to meet hers.

  The familiar snapping sound of the laser torch caused Chapman’s eyes to go as wide as saucers.

  Jo tightened her grip on Chapman’s head, keeping his eyes centimeters from hers. She hoped her voice sounded as cold and pissed off as she felt. “I don’t think I’m your type, Chapman. I’d cut it off before I’d let it in me, and I’d do the same to your clients.”

  Jo’s eyes only flickered to the side when she heard a couple of low chuckles from nearby. Apparently their little scene had caught the attention of passersby. She let just the hint of a smirk cross her lips.

  As soon as he realized she hadn’t cut him or cauterized anything delicate, Chapman burst from her grasp and stepped back. His hand strayed for a minute to the pistol in his waistband, but the crowd seemed to deter him. He frowned, teeth gritted. “You’re dead, Josephine Lutnear.”

  On hearing her name, Jo’s heart dropped into her stomach. She pointed the shaking cutter at her opponent and said in a hush, “How do you know my name, Chapman?”

  It was Chapman’s turn to sneer. “Last time you were here, you fashioned yourself a big, strong Grigaro wannabe. You know what I saw? I saw a little girl who was too stupid to know that she was being used.”

  Jo brandished her cutter, her voice rising. “How do you know my name?”

  “You see, before our quaint little encounter, I was walking in an alley. What did I see but another filthy stick man asking questions to an auspicious resident of this here asteroid—a dealer in secrets. Now, he’s a man that not many people get to see, so I wondered to myself how it was that a st
ick man had been given an appointment. So maybe I listened, and maybe I learned things, like your name, because this filthy stick was asking things about you.”

  Looking around, Chapman raised his lips in a sneer. “Would you like to discuss what I overheard here on the street, or will you come along, quietlike, so that we can discuss how to protect your secrets?”

  Looking around, Jo noticed that their confrontation had now stopped all traffic in the crowded aisle. The people watched brazenly, and while most of them seemed angry at Chapman, not all of them gave her friendly looks. Jo recognized one man as the dealer who had spit on Tanith. Based on the knowing smirk on his face, Jo guessed that he recognized her, but there was no way to tell what he made of it all.

  Keeping the weapon pointed at Chapman, Jo said in a hush, “No, I’m not going with you.”

  Basilio shrugged his billowing shirt back in place on his shoulders. Keeping a wary eye on the still-lit cutter, he stepped back toward her and whispered in her ear. “You’re a known associate of the fugitive prince. The Unity has a price so big on your head that sooner or later you’re dead, and someone’s gonna get rich. Now, of course, I could have offered you protection, angel. Kept you alive…” He paused, stepped back, and then raised his shoulders, palms outward. Speaking more loudly, he said, “But if you want to go it alone, that’s no skin off my nose.”

  Jo felt her right arm start to shake uncontrollably. Something feral and animal rose up in her. She wanted to claw his eyes out, to stab him with the cutter, but she felt impossibly vulnerable on the street in a place she hardly knew. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out.

  Chapman glanced at the watching crowd and apparently decided against extending their confrontation. He looked down at her, one corner of his mouth lifted in the mockery of a smile. “Take care of yourself, Jo. Watch your back. We’ll meet again.” Without waiting for a response, he turned and walked briskly away.

  Jo watched him for a few seconds as he wandered into the now dispersing crowd, lit torch still in her hand. She finally turned it off for fear that her shaking hand would lead her to cut herself. Although she had a sense that most of the crowd had been on her side, no one spoke to her. Instead, they formed a small almond-shaped eddy around her as they went about their business. Eventually, Jo wandered away.

  13

  The Pilot's Advice

  As she walked away from her confrontation with Chapman, Jo tried desperately to recapture the sense of hope and completeness that had possessed her in the moments prior, but now the same dirty stalls and broken signs that had held a sense of authenticity seemed to flash out hidden menace and suffering. The rapid change of mood bothered Jo, and she tried to find in herself the last vestiges of joy, even as they dissipated like vapor, replaced by the ball and chain of knotted fear she carried with her at all times.

  Jo wandered aimlessly, barely aware of the world around her, her mind replaying over and over Chapman’s words, trying to suss from them some way forward. How big was the threat? Would he really kill her? Should she kill him first? Did she need to leave Tortuga? Most importantly, what about the bounty on her head? If Kolas and then Chapman had found out about it, what was to keep someone else from doing the same?

  A sudden chill ran down Jo’s back, and she jumped and turned around. She found only find empty space and a surprised young man holding a small protein cake.

  Jo felt like a holi chip stuck on repeat. In the end, she couldn’t say how long she wandered this way. It could have been ten minutes or an hour. When she finally came back to the present, she had reached a decision. The way she saw it, she had four choices. The obvious choice was the Clarion. She could go back and just take Soren up on her job offer, but even though she trusted Soren, she didn’t really know the crew. How long before one of them decided to turn her in for the money? The more she thought about it, the more it concerned her. How could she trust anyone on the Clarion? They all knew her name.

  She could go back to the fleet, but that meant giving in to the military system that she hated. Even as she thought about it, her gut filled with darkness, but it wasn’t just wounded pride that kept her away. Something about that system so stifled her, so undermined her creativity, her personhood, that she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that one day she would cross the line. She would explode at a superior or worse, punch one of them, and that would be the end of her service in the Ghost Fleet.

  She’d heard stories … stories of the dead-eyed, frightened zombies who’d been given a dishonorable and had their memories wiped, only to be unceremoniously smuggled onto a space station or moon with no identity, no prospects, and no future. If Prince Jonas and the other commanders had any guts at all, they would have just shot the poor bastards. It would have been kinder. Jo decided that she would rather go back dead than go back and end up facing a court martial.

  That left her with only two viable options. The first was family, real family—her brother. Somewhere out there, her older brother remained free. It was Teddy who had truly raised her after her parents died. When Jack and Anna were fighting, it was Teddy who comforted her. It was Teddy who had always come to her when she screamed in the middle of the night.

  Teddy had left before the war began. He had received a scholarship to study theoretical physics at the state university of Rhinegau. As one of the few independent territories, Rhinegau had stayed neutral during the war. Now that the Unity had control of the Empire, Rhinegau was one of the few places technically not under its control. However, because they were completely surrounded by Unity-controlled space, how much real independence they actually possessed had been a matter of much debate in the Ghost Fleet. When she lived with her surrogate father on the command ship, she’d heard rumors that a lot of political refugees and wealthy members of the old Empire had fled to Rhinegau as the war turned sour.

  On the other hand, getting to Rhinegau would be hard. Even with her access to pilots and smugglers on Tortuga, it didn’t seem an easy task. Besides, some part of her was desperately tired of running. For Jo, it felt as if Chapman had thrown her into a particularly vicious Timcree krisbleipen. He had taken Jo to the very edge of the circle. She wasn’t sure that she was willing to let him push her out, especially because it meant starting over once again. Part of her wanted to fight, to make a stand and say enough.

  Chapman is the only person who can connect me to the bounty. If I stop him, I’m free, at least for now. If I fight Chapman I can stay here and become a doctor here and help these people.

  For a moment, her decision felt perfectly balanced between these two ideas, and then the bubble burst.

  There’s no way that I can fight Chapman. What am I going to do to kill him? No, if I want to be safe. Rhinegau is the only option.

  Kree pa, little Meeta, she thought in a mock imitation of Tanith’s accent.

  Jo took a few confident steps and then came to a halt looking around her. She needed to find someone trustworthy and ask a few questions. But how do I do that?

  Jo perused the booths around her, looking for the right person to approach, but no one looked safe. Jo walked on more cautiously. After a little while, Jo recognized that she was going to have to take a chance on it. She walked into a booth selling old-fashioned paper books, manned by a wiry gentleman with frizzy gray hair and long eyebrows that stuck far off his head. It was the helpless feeling of having no control that Jo feared the most.

  Jo’s steps slowed as she wandered the crowded tables of useless antiques. Whatever happened next, she always felt better when she had a plan under her feet. After a few moments, Jo allowed her steps to drift toward the old man, who looked up from the book he was reading.

  He smiled. “And how can I help you?”

  Jo tried to return his smile. Taking a wide, almost military stance, she put her hands behind her back and asked cheerfully, “I’m not as familiar with Tortuga as I would like. I was wondering if you could tell me where I might hire a ship.”

  The man’s smile
faltered a little, and he looked at her out of the corner of his eye. His voice turned suspicious. “A ship for what kind of cargo?”

  Jo tried to remain friendly, but she had no intention of giving the man anything useful. “Nothing too large, but something that needs to be carried discreetly over a long distance. If it could be stuffed in a container, I’ve already got a ship for that.”

  The man gave her a quick look up and down and then a quick nod. “Some kind of local trouble?”

  Jo refused to cave. “The trouble and the cargo are my own. Now, can you tell me where I can hire a ship?”

  Hearing her irritation, the man grinned a little wider, as if he knew exactly what she wanted. “The kind of ship you want can be hired at Sal’s Place.” He pointed to an arched rock corridor not too far from his booth. “It’s down that corridor maybe a half klick, on the left. Can’t miss it.”

  Jo picked up a yellowed and brittle paperback from a table. She grinned nervously at the cover, which held a drawing of a starship buried in a cloud of purple and blue dust. She loved the romanticism of ancient science fiction.

  The book dealer spoke up. “It’s late American English. Hard to read, but you get the gist. Published around the invention of the internet, a modest success.”

  Jo flipped open the cover to check the price. It wasn’t exactly cheap, but it wasn’t ridiculous, and the guy had helped her. She closed the cover again and looked at the title—Fluency by Jennifer Foehner Wells. She put the book down on the counter.

  “Thanks for the information,” she said as she held up her wrist wallet to let the man remove the credits from her account.

  The man’s bony cheeks flattened with his frown. His tone became fatherly. “Listen, I don’t know what trouble you’re in, but Sal’s isn’t exactly a friendly place. You let too many people know that you want to run away, and they’ll start asking questions. Running away means that someone wants to find you, and a lot of the pilots in Sal’s are going to do the math on what you can pay vs. what they can get for you right here. If that math doesn’t come out in your favor, they won’t hesitate to cash in without taking any risks. They might even try to take your money first. That way they get paid twice and don’t even have to fly. You understand?”