by Scott Rhine
Yenang seemed outraged. “Do you know who this woman is?”
Her aunt turned to the Bat with the machete and slapped him hard across the face. In the stunned silence that followed, she said, “La Generala thought to buy from professionals, but we were mistaken.”
She had handed Roz a role, one from a famous Spanish novel, Sombrero de Tres Picos. She had to bluff it out if they were going to walk out of here. At least she had to stall until the others arrived. She touched her earpiece as if she were opening a channel. “Don Chazno, I have more food for your dogs.”
The Bat lowered his pistol, and his friends backed away. “W-wait. This was just a mistake. We were told to hit a few foreign marks. We didn’t know. What were you looking to buy?”
Roz pointed to Yenang and used her father’s sarcastic tone. “We brought a weapons specialist to inspect the goods. What do you think we were shopping for, lingerie?”
The gang members looked at each other in fear and confusion. “We know a few arms dealers.”
Alyssa blotted Ivy’s bloody lip with a handkerchief. “For your mistake, the finder’s fee drops to 10 percent. Fifteen is too good for you.”
“Ten is fine,” said the man, holstering the pistol and moving close enough to whisper. The man at the rear had a crossbow of all things. A bolt would go straight through Roz’s new armor. “What sort of weapons?”
“Government knights have boarded our ship and taken what they wanted. We want to discourage this,” Roz said. “At least one shoulder-mounted rocket, six rifles, and a pistol to go with my new outfit.”
The lead thug rubbed his chin fur. “I know where to find four rifles and some grenades.”
Roz rolled her eyes. “Then you’ll throw in your own pistol, or it is no deal.”
“You want my gun in your holster, baby?”
Yenang’s head bopped back and forth during the exchange. He conspicuously placed himself between the leader and the woman. In Bat, he said, “Sir, do not offend her. She’s the consort of the Magi you just shot.”
The head thug made hyena sounds of amusement until the man with the crossbow collapsed due to tranq darts in his back. Max stepped into view and pointed his pistol at the lead thug. Max’s vest hummed with power that could only come from rare Turtle technology. It dawned on her that he could have killed all the thugs without receiving a scratch.
Reuben showed up at the other end of the alley with his neural staff to coldcock the machete owner. Comfortable with role-playing, he said, “Nobody laughs at La Generala.”
****
The women returned to the shuttle while the men completed negotiations for the black-market weapons. Kesh would bargain the price per grenade down to the equivalent of ten cheese fobs. The market was overrun with military surplus.
Alyssa asked, “Why did the Bats think Ivy was your Magi lover?”
“You mean other than the fact that she wouldn’t let us take her to a clinic for fear of blood samples or a brain scan?” Roz knew that Llewellyn Intelligence wouldn’t appreciate any genetic samples leaking. “Her psi level is off the charts, and Yenang saw her banking at the Magi desk. As for lover—”
“The kiss was probably too much,” Ivy rasped from the new mattress on the floor of the cargo module.
“Hmm. What did Max, your knight in shining armor, say to you back there to upset you so much?”
“He’s really angry at me,” Roz replied.
“That’s hardly fair. You reacted well in the crisis.”
Roz looked down at her still-groggy friend. “Ivy got shot because I was mad at her.”
“What the hell did I do?” Ivy asked. “I didn’t use tongue, and I still had my chewing gum after the kiss.”
Roz propped a blanket under Ivy’s head as a pillow. “You wouldn’t let me talk to Alyssa in private. I don’t want to air my family’s dirty laundry. I don’t want everybody in the bloody galaxy knowing who she is!” As Roz shouted, another shuttle passed by, causing a plastic bottle of water to fall off the shelf toward Ivy’s head.
Alyssa caught the water bottle before it struck. “Your talent is the strongest and wildest I’ve ever seen. Calm down.”
Ivy groaned. “You spent time with Reuben, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Roz said. “I made him cookies, hoping his talent could help me solve some equations for Echo. By the way, his choice of music is incredibly discordant. At least translate it to Bat instead of English.”
“You listened to music with my boyfriend just so he’d boost you?” Ivy asked.
“It was nothing personal. Purely scientific,” Roz insisted.
“And you called me a slut.”
“That’s different,” Roz said, softening. “You are one.”
“Prude.”
“Am not.”
“Prove it,” Ivy said. “Show Max the full pirate outfit and use the word ‘booty’ in a sentence.”
“I will not,” Roz said, blushing. “That’s disgusting.”
Alyssa cleared her throat. “That’s what you’re advertising. Dress for the job you want, and all that.”
Roz swallowed hard. “Max wants to meet with me in my room alone when we get back. He’s really angry.”
Ivy said, “Tell him you deserve a spanking, and it’ll be the best night of your life.”
“I won’t be vulgar. Echo says this process is sacred. I won’t end up an unwed mother like mine was.”
Alyssa handed Ivy the water, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes. “How did you find out? Did Max tell you?”
“No. You dropped enough clues. Once I knew Niels was my real father, the rest was simple,” Roz said.
Alyssa wrapped her arms around Roz. “Querida, can you ever forgive me?”
Roz shrugged. “I understand. You didn’t want to hurt Carmen, but I knew I never fit in. Someone should have told me.”
Sobbing, Alyssa said, “I wanted you to have a normal life. I had to escape that place before it killed me. You felt the same way.”
The conversational jump felt like Roz had turned two pages in her math book instead of one, making the problem surreal. “When I didn’t make the exam, I figure Niels phoned me to wake me up. It saved my life. Your blackmailing him a second time—”
“I never blackmailed him,” Alyssa said sternly. “He was too sweet. He volunteered after we made love five or six times.”
Even Ivy sprayed water all over the room at this admission.
Carmen and Alyssa both seduced my biological father? That’s sick. Her brain reeled until she realized: if she didn’t get the PM gene from Enrico Mendez, which Mendez had it come from? No. That would make Alyssa … her mother. “You got pregnant with me before you left Napa on your scholarship.”
“I was three months along when I took the test. I left a week after I gave birth,” Alyssa said.
“Because I was a life-ruining mistake?”
Another shuttle flew by, and all the women were ready for the next plastic bottle that dropped. “Jeez,” Ivy said. “Ease up. It’s been thirty years. She’s moved heaven and Earth to meet up with you again.” Roz glared at her, but her friend continued, “My parents were sperm and egg donors. I never met them. I wish I had a cool interstellar-class talent from my mom. Hell, I’d be happy if she ever met me.”
Alyssa licked her lips. “Carmen had a miscarriage. It happens about one time in four on that poison planet. She was inconsolable until I suggested that she raise you with the dead child’s name and record the dead child as mine. She loved you so much that over time, I’m not sure she knew the difference.”
Roz couldn’t see through her tears. Herb was right; this woman had a closet full of other shoes to drop. “What was my name suppose to be?”
“I have only ever called you Querida, my dearest.”
Even life-hardened, Ivy cried. The floor of the shuttle was wet with drops. When Reuben returned, he asked, “What happened in here?”
“It rained,” Roz said. It rained shoes.
****
Roz stood rigid in her new armor, while Max circled her like a recruit in boot camp. “If I have anything to do with it, you will never leave this ship again.” He huffed with suppressed fury.
She bowed her head. “Forgive me. I acted irresponsibly today. I endangered my best friend, my mother, and our mission. I have you to thank for all three surviving, and my discovering the truth.”
Her acceptance of responsibility took him off guard. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Tomorrow, my mother and Ivy will begin teaching me how to shield. I will become a wall no one can penetrate.”
“Good. Why not tonight?” Max asked.
She unbuttoned her heavy jacket. “Tonight, I wanted to thank you. No man will see what’s under my armor except you.” Her heavy jacket slid to the floor, causing him to hold his breath. She thought he was going to have heart failure when she bent over to pull off the boots. She enjoyed having that sort of effect on him, as powerful as she had been at the helm of the ship. Barefoot, she approached him. Only his eyes moved to track hers. “When we’re alone like this, and when you whisper my name, I want you to call me Querida.”
Their clothes stayed on, but she denied him nothing else. So many sensations bombarded her that she thought she might explode.
When he finally invoked her real name, she could tell he meant it sincerely. He knew who she really was and yet almost worshipped her. She also knew she would follow him anywhere and support anything he needed.
The tumblers of the universe turned at the feather touch of kisses.
Chapter 22 – Seat of the Pants
Max had prescribed Ivy a few days of bed rest. She grinned when Roz visited her the next morning. “Your clothes have changed to white.”
Roz wore her new boots and a lab coat to hide the new tights she had never changed out of. A light-blue pattern of stylized M. C. Escher birds crossed her legs like fishnet stockings. “Hah. Max must have accidentally found the controls for my pants.”
Her friends laughed long and hard. “Honey, it was no accident. That man has navigated several pairs of pants in his day.”
Roz felt too mellow to react. “This time is different.”
“I hope so, Generala. You know that’s what we’re going to call you behind your back from now on when you’re being a control freak.”
“I’m a control freak? Max won’t even let the engineer candidates meet me. Each time Kesh finds another one for export to the frontier planet, they stick him in stasis.”
Ivy nodded. “How many living people can this ship hold?”
Blowing a strand of stray hair out of her face, Roz did the math. “Sphere of Influence was designed to run for a few thousand years with three people. With periodic scrubbing, it holds three times that easily—nine like we have now. Magi safety standards dictate we could run with up to three times that number for a limited period—twenty-seven.”
“What is it with them and threes?” asked Ivy.
“I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you,” Roz joked. “How are you feeling? Max said there should be no permanent damage from the neuro scrambler.”
Ivy shook her right hand. “My whole right side still feels like I slept on it wrong, and the circulation doesn’t want to come back. Shooting pins and needles on my skin. My hand is still paralyzed. I’m frilling lucky I didn’t take a head shot, but losing even a little bladder control was mortifying. Reuben had to change the sheets already. He’s been very attentive.”
“So how does repeated exposure to Reuben’s talent affect you?”
“That’s a personal question.”
“Hey, I’ve shared my love life with your whole family.”
“Fair enough,” said Ivy. “My being a genius who can see every living thing on the ship, except Max, is a rush. Some of it lasts up to a day beyond our contact, so I’ve been studying, trying to permanently etch new pathways. I figure I can parlay the new expertise into an analyst job when I get home. That would be better than a baby factory.”
“Any immediate benefits?”
“I’ve planned our best choices of cargo for the whole journey to the prison’s doorstep and back to Magi space. The exact week we arrive is important. For example, the best crop we’ll get from Butterfly of Doom is potatoes. Barring that, we’ll settle for oil beans.”
“Butterfly of what?”
“Ironically, there are no butterflies on the planet. The translation isn’t exact, but the constellation name is from one of their myths. This large, black insect appears as a harbinger of trouble in the mountain kingdom.”
Roz knew from her tour of the border planet that Bats were originally insectivores. Perhaps the ominous bug was only dangerous if someone ate it, like the forbidden fruit.
“If you like Reuben so much, why did you screw around with Deke and risk it all?”
Ivy swallowed hard. “Sometimes I want to stop thinking and forget who I am for a while.”
“How many times have you done this?” Roz asked, her pitch increasing.
“You don’t want to know.”
“With Max?” Roz asked, panicking.
Ivy put her hand over her head to avoid falling objects. “No. God, no. I would never.”
“Damn straight. Any woman messes with my man, meteors are going to rain down on her head.”
“Stop it,” Ivy said. “This is what gave your mother brain tumors. Every time you mess with probability, it affects your cells, risking mutation.”
“So? You’re going to show me how to control myself.”
Ivy shrugged. “I can give you the tools, but you have to provide the control. We’ll start with basic meditation. Once you master that, we’ll set you up with a monitor so you can control pulse rate and theta activity. Echo and Alyssa will teach the advanced classes.”
At the end of the hour, Alyssa tapped on the door. Her mother gave a sad smile. “Max brought me something for you.” The regal woman held forth a branch from a fruit tree covered with white blossoms.”
Ivy said, “Ahh. See, Reuben eats that sort of thing. Teach Max about jewelry, and you have a keeper there, honey.”
Roz accepted the branch, holding it to her chest and enjoying the aroma of new love.
Alyssa sighed. “I checked in the jungle, and most of the plants are flowering today.”
“We could all go for a picnic to enjoy it!” Roz said.
“I’m afraid this isn’t good news,” her mother warned. “They’re not supposed to bloom all at once, but over the course of several months.”
“Then how?” Roz asked. Both the other women stared at her until she guessed. “Oh. I guess I felt a little (ahem) happy last night.”
Ivy chuckled throatily.
Roz hastened to say, “Just necking. No sex.”
“Still, you can’t be alone with Max again until you learn conscious control,” Alyssa warned. “There are some things you want your talent to affect instinctively, like avoiding a fatal bullet. Everything else is playing with fire. Lesson number one: when you push probability curves, sometimes they push back to normalize the world.”
“That isn’t fair. Max and I need bonding time. Ask Echo. She said separately, the three of us are like sand, cement, and gravel. We need water, stirring, and time to cure to become concrete that will last forever.”
“It’s that wet and stirred-up state that bothers us,” Ivy said.
“I’m over thirty, and you’re not my damn mother.” Recalling that her actual mother was standing next to her, Roz said, “I didn’t mean anything by that.”
Alyssa ignored both the slight and the innuendo. “Start a poker game. Invite the other partners. That will be an excellent time for neutral interaction, as well as exercising your talent. First you can practice feeling probability flows. Dice are too simplistic and take too much energy to manipulate. Cards are longer term, and that sort of luck is easier to bend gradually. Lesson two: pick your battles and aim for the long run.”
When co
ntacted, Echo sided with the others. “Until our marriage, you will be chaperoned at all times. Before the wedding can transpire, you must learn not to kill Max if he says something that angers you.”
“Fine,” Roz said with disgust.
****
The next day, Roz took her copilot to dinner before shift change. Deke said, “This is very considerate. Thank you.” He began shoving sweet-potato fries into this mouth like they were trying to escape.
“Not a problem,” Roz replied. “I just wanted to get away from women talking about their feelings for one hour.”
Deke stopped, fries in hand, mouth open. He correctly deduced, too late, that he had made himself a captive audience. He couldn’t leave mid-meal, certainly not without spilling the honey dipping sauce. “Ready for the long hop?”
At fifty days end-to-end, this jump was a little longer than average. She just grunted. “Max wouldn’t put the last engineer into stasis, even though I told him that I fixed the flutter in the unit’s power coupling. So now I have to find things for a plasma specialist to do around the ship to earn his stateroom.”
Deke’s eyes moved to the ladder where Max could reappear at any moment. “I find it is best for one specialist not to meddle in the domain of another.”
“It’s okay. I’m not asking you to choose sides. I trust him with all our lives. He just made a boatload more work for me.”
The Bat feigned interest in his meal.
Roz said, “If this trend keeps up, we’re going to have a significant Bat crew, and specialists don’t like to listen to people through the translator.”
“I’ve been meaning to tell the astrogator that the jump to Little Flowers was exceedingly smooth. The engines are also much quieter.” Deke shoved more food in to finish faster.
“Thanks. We did a lot of work tuning them in Prairie.”
“No, I could still sense cavitations on the jump to Phoenix,” Deke said.
“Well that just means my modifications to the ship are moving in the right direction.” And my theories are correct.
Deke nodded. “If something is too noisy, that means energy is being wasted.”
“A philosophy for management if ever I heard one,” Roz said. “Congratulations, you’ve been promoted to Bat manager.”