by Scott Rhine
Roz swallowed. “I thought they were our allies.”
“As long as our interests align,” Ivy whispered. “Right now, their banking system relies on the fact that no one can travel from one planetary bank to another in less than eleven days. So they only transmit account updates once every eight days. What would happen if criminals had a fleet of ships like The Inner Eye that could make the jump in seven?”
“Someone could empty the same accounts several times over, crashing the entire banking system,” Roz guessed.
“The Banker intelligence network is the most pervasive of any species. They have agents on every major university board and military oversight committee to make sure this never happens. Several areas of research are deemed illegal by the Bankers and anyone who signs contracts with them. That would make us the dangerous criminals in the analogy.”
“But Bankers don’t have jails,” Roz said. “They make it impossible for anyone to get to Nivaar. The system is exit-only. How do they enforce this ban?”
After Ivy drew a finger across her throat, Roz understood the seriousness of their mission. “None of us on the ship are Banker spies, right?”
Ivy shrugged. “I know Max is straight-up. He started this company and doesn’t care about money. In fact, if you two have a future, you may need to oversee the family finances. We all know you’re too honest to be a secret agent.”
“Because you’ve been watching my every move for a year?”
“You’re a bootstrap sort who wouldn’t take help from aliens if they offered,” Ivy said. “We can trust Reuben because the Bankers would like his line extinguished. His ancestor, the Black Ram, did everything he could to break his people out of their cycle of debt. Goats do scut work for everyone to pay the interest on their government’s loans. Bankers own all the Goat space stations, something Humans would never allow.”
Roz rolled her eyes. Human stations were used as staging areas during colonization. Later phases used them to control trade, immigration, and technology access. Terraforming fees paid to the Llewellyn Corporation and construction costs for a station accounted for the majority of founding expenses. Such a mortgage could take a century for colonists to pay off. “That just means we borrow from the Lunar Oligarchs, who aren’t much better. What about our Saurian partner, Kesh?”
“There’s a reason we don’t talk about stuff in front of him, and why I’m his new secretary. He makes more money on the markets than someone should be able to legitimately, and he needed help hiding from the mob.”
Roz thought long and hard as she stripped off her clothes to prepare for bed. “Is Max aware of all this?”
“We haven’t discussed it, but I’m sure that’s why he recruited experts like me and Reuben—to cover his back. His specialty is working in the field.”
Placing a folded work jumpsuit on her dresser, Roz shared her worries. “Max plays his cards close to the chest and doesn’t trust anybody completely except Echo.”
“That’s the business, honey. Once you’re off this ship, don’t leave his side for any reason. If he asks you to do anything, do it without hesitation, even if it sounds strange.”
“Sure.” Roz slipped into pajamas and under her sheets. She turned out the lights soon after, but her mind was abuzz with possibilities. She stared into the darkness for hours before sleep came.
Chapter 4 – Visions
Max asked Ivy to show Roz the basics of self defense. Even when Roz objected that she knew how to handle herself, he insisted. Ivy explained during their first session in the birch forest biozone. “The doctor is probably concerned about me gaining weight and losing muscle tone in the lower gravity.”
“Then why is he watching from the inner-ring window?”
“You mean other than seeing you in your skin-tights?”
Roz blew a raspberry. “Men don’t gawk at me.”
Ivy smiled. “He wants to see if I’ve been trained to kill, but he’s afraid to ask. He also knows I won’t hold back from giving you a few instructional bruises like he would. Having you survive is too important to all of us.”
“Are you?” Roz asked. “Because that would be kind of neat.”
“Have you ever killed your own food? Snapped its neck? Heard it squeal as it tried to escape? Smelled the mixture of crap and blood afterward?”
“No.”
“I’ve never killed a person and never want that to be necessary,” Ivy explained. “According to Reuben, Max was a medic for the Phantom Cosmonauts, the special forces team that tracked down over a hundred Phib war criminals. He’s the only survivor, and he doesn’t want to see blood anymore.”
Max watched silently from the sidelines. As promised, after some initial strength training and core development, Ivy caused a lot of sweat and bruises. After a blow to the head, Roz rested on the ground for too long, and the doctor materialized without a sound. She waved him off as soon as her head stopped ringing. “I got worse giving my brothers a bath.”
Ivy was fast and sneaky, but Roz had reach and power.
One day when Roz got cocky about scoring a point, Max snatched her from behind, cutting off her breath for an instant. “Killers rarely follow rules or work alone. Always be aware of your surroundings. Running to populated areas should be your first line of defense.” His breath smelled like mint. He dropped her onto the grass, refusing to meet her gaze.
She got the message: confidence was good, but overconfidence could be fatal.
For the rest of that lesson, Ivy explained how to detect and then lose someone tailing her.
****
Roz relaxed into the routine of working out, meals, and repairs. Having a library of other Magi ships to draw on made it easy for her to know what healthy components were supposed to look like. The hardest part of Roz’s work was leaving some of the fixes labeled and undone as a test for her replacement. Limited to eight hours of tube exposure a day, she experienced no adverse reactions … until the final repair scheduled before they left subspace. She bent the rules because it would only take a few extra minutes. She had already sent her helpers away. Two hours past her deadline, Roz began to see double.
What followed could only be described as a vision.
She feverishly tried to relate the contents to Max as he carried her back to her room. “They’re waiting. So many possibilities. Love us. Worried.”
“Prepare a full brain workup,” he mumbled to a hologram that followed him through the halls to the lift.
“We don’t have the right facilities for Humans,” replied the replica of Gina.
Roz said, “Echo doesn’t really look like that. Saw glimpse of white hair.”
“Bring her to me,” the astrogator demanded.
Max shook his head. “She needs medical attention.”
“Trust me,” Echo insisted.
Growling, Max ordered the elevator to the spherical core instead of the sick bay in his old room. After he placed Roz on the hexagonal cot, he tried to linger, but Echo ordered him away. Only when he slunk into the elevator did Echo appear at Roz’s side.
Roz babbled, “Your triad hasn’t died completely. The place below this realm holds a piece of them like a photograph, hundreds of photographs, all talking at once. Singing, but I can’t make out the words.”
Rubbing the base of the pilot’s skull, Echo said, “Show me, child.”
Roz jolted again, as she had entering subspace. She reentered the forever place, but Echo seemed sad. “Max!” She vanished into a hidden stasis chamber, afterimages blurring her form.
The doctor hadn’t left their floor yet. All of his images converged on the pale woman lying on the cot. He pushed on her chest and breathed into her mouth until Roz coughed awake.
Despite the odd journey, Roz felt abnormally placid.
Max looked shaken. “Echo. Whatever just happened, can you stop her from repeating it, or do I need to install a pacemaker?”
“Sedate her, and I’ll attempt a temporary block.”
“Attempt?” Max asked,
adjusting a dial before he poked something sharp into Roz’s shoulder.
Words melted into puddles.
****
When Roz awoke, she was in her own handcrafted, teak bed from Eden. She recognized the flannel sheets Ivy had fabricated especially for her—tiny pink wrenches and blowtorches on a white background, arranged like floral sprays. “What happened?”
Ivy shook her head. “You’re banned from the quantum tubes whenever we’re in subspace. Any other time, you can only work under supervision for four hours at a time.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Roz insisted. She wanted to tell Ivy something important about bright lights, but the memory slipped away like fog. “Retrofitting the secondary drive will take a whole year at that rate.”
“Until you can be trusted, that’s the way it has to be,” Ivy insisted.
Roz sat up in bed and touched her lips. “Why do I taste mint?”
“Probably from the mouth-to-mouth Max gave you to bring you back from the edge. You scared the crap out of all of us, honey.”
Something important about repeating infinite sequences nagged at Roz, and the room didn’t feel right.
Ivy pushed her back onto the mattress. “Get some rest, pilot. You have a long day tomorrow.”
“Where is Max?”
“Studying your brain chemistry, EEG, and a dozen research papers. He’s even sequencing your DNA with the Magi equipment to see if you have latent schizophrenia or psi talent.”
“That’s ridiculous. I’m a null.”
“For Collective Unconscious,” Ivy clarified. “There are at least twenty-seven other Human talents.”
Glancing at the wall beside her, Roz finally figured out what had changed. “Why did you move my bed in front of the door to Max’s room?”
Ivy smirked. “While you were busy trying to kill yourself, the rest of us were arranging your birthday gift. We put a doggy door in between the rooms. The passage connects the underside of Max’s bed to yours. Kesh made matching embroidered pillows, one for each side. When Max went to fetch you, his intent was to show you our gift. Surprise.”
Roz ran a hand down the narrow gap between the bed frame and the door to find a soft heap of fur that almost purred with her touch. Jeeves. “Momma’s here. Thank you, Ivy. It’s perfect.” Jeeves, too, smelled of mint tea, and the aroma drifted up. Oddly, the combination relaxed her enough that she slipped effortlessly into sleep.
Chapter 5 – Prairie Station
During the trip into Prairie Station, Roz let the automatic pilot handle most of the workload. The other crewmembers took turns watching her. At first the behavior was touching, but when people sent Ivy in to check after a long bathroom stay, Roz drew the line.
“Just following the doctor’s orders,” Ivy explained.
“He doesn’t need to know the chili we thawed gives me gas. I’ll have a word with him.”
During their next appointment, however, Max looked so concerned that she couldn’t work up the anger to confront him. He drew more blood for testing and asked her questions about her family tree. “I’m sure the genetic results I have are a result of using machines calibrated for Magi. I’ll send the sample out for the tests on Human equipment when we reach the space station.” Then Max shifted conversation. “Who should we ask to babysit Jeeves for our upcoming trip? What should the sitter do beyond supplying food and water?” No one else aboard had seen the creature, and several considered Jeeves an elaborate running joke.
Roz explained how living in a closet could stifle the child’s development. Over lunch, she took Jeeves on a daily “walk” to the jungle biome so he could play in the trees like a normal child his age. With his hidden eyes and growing arms, he seemed more like a sloth. He certainly enjoyed hugging like one. Max accompanied her to see the frolicking. Roz hid fruit in places like the hollow log to offer Jeeves more challenge. She found herself watching the amused doctor almost as much as the climbing and swinging mimic.
After careful consideration, they decided to move Jeeves’s bedding to a hidden cove in the play area. Roz would ask Reuben to make daily deposits of food and water during the recruiting mission. If he needed to approach the mimic, he could borrow Ivy’s mu-shield helmet to look like a null. The jungle would be off-limits to anyone below partner rank.
****
After Roz docked The Inner Eye at Prairie Station, Kesh bellowed from the lift, “These fuel requisitions you signed are outrageous. We don’t need this much to reach Phoenix.” His brown, pebbled skin reminded her of an expensive handbag.
Roz explained, “Phoenix doesn’t have fuel to spare. Buying it here and paying the freight is actually cheaper.”
“So much of it?”
“I allocated enough that we could skip a stop in Cocytus if necessary. Standard reserves from the Union space manual.”
Kesh said, “That’s the wartime version, in case the port was captured by the Phibs. We don’t need that safety measure anymore.”
“Restrictions still apply on all border systems. This year’s manual suggests an additional 10 percent surplus for emergency burn. I only padded by 2 percent because Echo and I plotted the course pretty tight. If you want me to go by the book, it’ll be more. If you shave those safety margins, then you can find yourself another chief pilot.”
“You’re going to bankrupt me,” Kesh grumbled.
“Or save your miserly life.”
As Roz bounded down the gangway to interview the grease monkeys who wanted to touch her ship, Max hovered near her elbow. That was the last straw. “I’m not made of glass! Back off. If the repair crews see you as the authority figure, they’ll never respect me.” She had cleaned and pressed her uniform to make the best possible impression.
Max raised both hands in a gesture of surrender and maintained a one-meter buffer. “We’ll tell everyone I’m your bodyguard.”
She grunted noncommittally as they passed through customs. The papers Reuben had provided stood up to bored bureaucratic scrutiny.
As requested, the workers gathered in their locker room beside their vacuum suits. Based on résumés, she had only invited six to interview. As she examined their suits and boots, she tsked in disgust at two, dismissing them immediately. While Max stood out of sight, she addressed the four remaining. “I have a delicate task for someone with a steady hand. If your performance is satisfactory, we may be able to offer a long-term contract.”
The handsome man in a fashionable new shirt smiled disarmingly. “Sounds like someone needs servicing.”
Roz waved her hand. “Not from you. You can leave.”
“Wait a cotton-picking minute,” the fashion plate objected, standing. He towered over her by at least fifteen centimeters.
Max started forward, but Roz glared at him. While they debated silently, a stubble-faced man in his late forties intervened. “You don’t want to go messing with this chief engineer, or every service man on this vessel will take turns pummeling you.”
Puzzled, the tall, handsome man retreated. “Some people can’t take a joke.”
When he was gone, Roz looked at her pad. “Ensign Grady? Is there a reason you don’t think I can take care of myself?”
“No, sir. Just your medal deserves respect.” Grady nodded at Max’s dolphin pin on her lapel.
Roz struggled to maintain control of the interview. “This pin was given to me by a kindhearted friend who doesn’t know a fusion reactor from a wet fart. He hired me because he almost crushed himself moving cargo.”
“Everybody knows them sleds have a dead-man’s switch,” Grady said with an easy smile. A few of his teeth needed repair.
Max scratched the back of his neck, turning away.
“Says here you were a twenty-year man with the Union Navy,” she read. “Why settle here?”
“I helped retake Winedark. Nasty business. Can’t stand near water too much anymore. Drove an amphibious landing craft.”
Max gave a thumbs-up.
Roz nodded. “You’re the s
upervisor. I need one more hand. Anybody have trouble working with other species?” She listed them off one at a time, and the woman in the group wrinkled her nose at Goat.
“No thanks.” The woman voluntarily left.
Roz approached the last man. “Bertram. On your application, you used the word proud twice. Are you too good to mop or move freight when we need it?”
“No, ma’am. Who are you guys? We’ve never heard of Far Traveler before.”
“My friends are just merchants. I’m the cast-iron bitch who’s going to make your life hell if you slack off. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” said both candidates.
“Any other questions?”
“Does the job come with a bunk and three squares? The food in this place costs more than I make,” noted Bertram.
“We can arrange that. Here’s your list of duties for the next two weeks. I want a schedule and an inventory of things you need to requisition by end of business today.”
“A few of these things we may need to scope out before we can give you numbers,” said Grady.
“That’s why you’re senior tech, Ensign. I’ll sign the estimate when I get the report. Carry on.”
Once Roz was into the station bazaar proper, she cracked a smile. “They didn’t even ask about the salary.”
Max shrugged. “I’m guessing Union standard and a change of scenery would be plenty. Besides, you had them at cast iron.”
She glanced at Max’s wrist unit. “Just in time. Your appointment is in fifteen minutes. The dentist is about four hatches spinward. I can pick up a few personal things for Ivy and Kesh while you’re in there.”
“Dentist?” Max said, suddenly pale.
“Problem?”
“Um … could you stay with me?”
“Sure,” she said far too quickly. “Why?”
“I have trust issues. Because of my military clearance, I can’t let anyone inject me, restrain me, or question me unless there’s a teammate present,” Max explained.
“I’d be honored,” she said. “It’s the least I could do for someone who lent me a pin that gets me the respect of every serviceman I meet.”