Josune stood, too. “I’ll go prepare the calibrator slot.” There was nothing she could do until the new one arrived, but it was an excuse. She wanted to make good and sure that The Road’s memory was protected. And that the ship was better armed. The first place she planned to stop was her own cabin, where Reba’s sparker was locked in her safe. One could never have too many concealed weapons.
* * *
• • •
Josune was on the bridge when Carlos called.
Roystan answered. “That was fast.” He put the communicator on speaker so Josune could hear.
“It’s fast because there is only one for sale, and it’s old.”
Roystan looked at Josune.
“Not a problem.”
“Buy it.”
“Well, I would, but we have another problem.” Carlos scowled. “We’re in the legal zone. The trader won’t sell to anyone who isn’t certified to use it.”
That was the law. Only doctors and modders were certified to purchase genemod machines. Still, wave enough credits in front of anyone and eventually they’d take it.
“Offer him more,” Josune said.
“It’s junk.” Carlos didn’t sound hopeful. “An early model. It probably wouldn’t be compatible with the ship. I’m not sure it’s worth it.”
“Offer him—”
“No. Wait,” Roystan said. “I know where we can get someone certified to buy it for us. If she hasn’t already left.”
“A doctor?” On the Hub? Carlos sounded skeptical, and Josune didn’t blame him. The hospital was company run. No one would risk a company job to help free traders.
“Not a doctor. A modder.”
It took twelve months to get a doctor’s certificate. Most of that was learning how to use the machine, how to make minor repairs, and how to analyze the numerous diagnostics a genemod machine provided. It took another five years to become a modder, to become proficient enough to redesign people’s bodies. Modders made big credits. They stayed on-world in their expensive studios, and clients came to them.
“You’re dreaming, Roystan. You won’t find a modder on the Hub.”
“She was looking for passage. She might have accepted Captain Jai’s offer.”
The way their luck was running, she’d be gone.
Roystan snatched up his communicator. “Come back here, Carlos. I’ll send the modder and Josune in to buy the machine. No one will recognize Josune as from our ship.”
They had to find the modder first.
“Come on,” Roystan said to Josune. “Let’s go get ourselves a calibrator.”
“Wait. We’re not going in unarmed.” She pulled out Reba’s sparker. “Lift your shirt.”
“My—”
She lifted it for him and pulled the Velcro strap of the holster around tight. He was so very skinny, ribs prominent over tight skin. Where did all Jacques’s food go? “I want your metabolism.”
“I can’t take your weapon.”
“It’s Reba’s.” She touched her jacket. “I’ve still got mine.”
Should she tell him Reba’s weapon was more powerful than hers? No. Best not let him worry about the damage he might do.
Roystan tucked the sparker carefully into its holster and pulled his shirt down. She’d never noticed before just how loose the shirt was.
“You do know how to use a sparker?” She should have checked first. “Have you ever fired one before?”
“A long time ago.”
Why wasn’t she surprised that he had?
Roystan patted his shirt uncomfortably. “A pity we had to register the Hassim before we sold it. People know who we are. That makes it easy to find us.”
“I don’t think the company has a full team here yet,” Josune said. Otherwise they’d have stormed The Road by now. “At a guess, they had people nearby. Sent them here to keep an eye on us, and to stop us leaving.”
“You’ve two and a half hours before we have to vacate our berth,” Jacques reminded them. “We can’t pay for an overstay.”
Roystan gave his shirt one more pat. “Then let’s not waste any more time.”
Josune followed him. “Why don’t we just find the trader? It will save time.”
“And do what?”
Josune didn’t answer.
“We should at least try, Josune. If that doesn’t work, we’ll do it your way.”
They were walking into a trap. Josune was sure of it.
9
NIKA RIK TERRI
The Boldly Go worked between the Hub and New France. Snow hadn’t found anything to complain of with the ship, and Nika was desperate to leave the Hub. Eight days until Tamati came out.
They shared a four-berth cabin with two other travelers. An older woman returning to New France after the birth of her granddaughter, and a miner around Snow’s apparent age, who was going home to visit his wife. He couldn’t stop talking about it.
Family. Nika’s family had lived for the company they worked for. They’d been fair but distant guardians, ensuring that she was fed, healthy, and educated, but they spent most of their time—even when they were home—working.
Captain Jai, one hundred twenty centimeters tall, with bones for a person a meter taller—height was one thing a modder couldn’t change easily—wanted them out of the way while she finished loading.
“Stay in your cabin, or find a bar, but be back here no later than 22:45. We ship out at 23:00 and I’m not waiting for missing passengers.”
Nika would have preferred to stay in her cabin, but the others—even Snow—opted for the bar. “After all,” the miner had said, “we’ll be on the ship a week. Why stay on it longer than we need to?”
The four of them adjourned to the bar closest to the ship. Nika watched the clock and drank water while the others talked. The clock didn’t seem to move.
The miner was explaining, for the fifth time, the plans he had for his break.
“Going to the zoo. We met at the zoo, in the giant monitor enclosure. That’s where we’ll go first, and—”
Snow’s eyes were glazed, but he nodded. “The giant lizards.” He hadn’t known what a monitor was the first time.
“Young people,” the grandmother said to Nika. “In love. Have you ever been in love?”
She’d thought she had. Attracted to a dangerous man, but had it been love? It certainly wasn’t love at the end. Nika shrugged.
“No? I went through two husbands before I fell in love. But I loved my daughter, right from the start.”
The lenses on the grandmother’s eyes were starting to cloud. She was heading toward cataracts; she’d need them fixed soon. Nika forced herself to bite her tongue. The woman had confided how carefully she’d budgeted for this break. When her eyes got noticeably bad she’d get them fixed. No point worrying her now.
Two men in business suits stepped through the doorway.
The grandmother stopped midsentence and spat on the floor. “Company grunts. Don’t often get them slumming up here.”
Nika hardly heard her, couldn’t tear her eyes away as light reflected off a black pin in one of the collars. They’d found her. Already. How was that possible?
Maybe Nika, in Tamati’s body, had been so badly injured she’d set the time wrong and Tamati had come out of the machine early. No. She knew her job. Tamati must have had people working with him.
“Snow.” Nika didn’t recognize her own voice. “We forgot the mutrient. We need to get it before we go on board.” She grabbed Snow’s arm.
“But we can’t take mutrient on a—”
“Come on,” she hissed. “They found us.”
“Banjo.” A soundless whisper from Snow.
She wasn’t going to argue if it made him move. “Make it look natural. Exiting, I mean. Don’t run until we’re around the next corrid
or.”
“Who?”
She wasn’t going to tell him, because he’d automatically look. He looked anyway, for it didn’t take a genius to work out who their pursuers would be. She felt Snow’s muscles bunch as soon as they were out the door. “Wait. Don’t let them see us run.”
But her own muscles were twitching. So much so that she put a hand on the wall to stop herself from taking off.
Snow’s longer legs had an advantage. “Hurry.”
Nika glanced behind just as someone came out of the bar. “Run.” By the time her brain caught up with the adrenaline and she realized it was a stranger, it was too late. They were running.
Around the corner.
Full tilt into a woman hurrying the other way.
* * *
• • •
“Whoa,” said the woman, grabbing Nika before she fell.
In front of her, Snow backpedaled. Nika looked up to find herself staring into a weapon. A sparker.
“Sorry.” It was their almost-patient, Roystan. He looked a bit sheepish as he shoved the weapon into its holster under his shirt. “Instinct,” he told the woman who had caught Nika. “But well met, since we were looking for you.”
“We’re in a hurry,” Nika said, and couldn’t stop herself looking back. There was no one there.
“We’re in a hurry, too.” Roystan glanced the same way Nika had. “Let’s walk and talk.”
“Sure.” They set off briskly down the corridor.
“You pulled a weapon on us,” Snow said.
Nika didn’t think Roystan was their enemy. But could she trust him? Maybe he had a problem with his new hu-skin.
Snow must have been thinking along the same lines. He glared at Roystan. “I hope you aren’t going to demand medical advice.”
Nika couldn’t stop the words that tripped out. “He was almost a patient.” Too much adrenaline. She needed to calm down.
“There’s a difference between almost and is. And that difference could be called stalking.”
“I know this looks bad.” Roystan glanced behind again.
He was as nervous as they were. Nika looked at the woman following Snow. She was tall and rangy, a good match for Roystan. She had spent time under a machine in the past. Nika recognized the silver skin tint. It had been a Rik Terri color two seasons ago. The long, blue-black, loosely braided hair had a metallic sheen that went well with the silver. It wasn’t something Nika had put together, but it was a good fit. She’d have to find out who had done the mod.
Unfortunately, the woman also had an atypical droop in the right eyelid that signaled work under it. That mod included some heavy bioware, at a guess. Expensive, company-level bioware. Her clothes were the same quality as the ones Nika had left behind when she’d run.
And she kept one hand close to the opening of her jacket. Nika would bet she had a concealed weapon. She raised her eyes to the girl’s collar. No black pin. That didn’t mean much. Alejandro hadn’t always worn his pin either. But he had one. He’d boasted that they were only given out after they’d been earned.
The woman blinked on her bioware as they turned into another corridor. “Let’s speed it up.”
Nika needed no further bidding to quicken her pace. She was almost running.
They turned down another corridor. Then another.
“We haven’t much time,” Roystan said.
Nika nodded. Neither did they. As soon as she could safely drag herself and Snow away from them, they’d go.
“I know you’re both running from whatever happened down on Lesser Sirius.”
Snow started to protest. “That’s not—”
Roystan held up a hand. “You can go with the Boldly Go, but I have a better offer. I’ll take you with us.” His words tumbled out one over the other. “We have a seven-day layover at Atalante in two weeks. From there I’ll take you anywhere in the galaxy you want to go that I can get to and back in that time.”
“Why?” Nika asked. No one made an offer like that. “What’s the catch?”
“We’re in a bit of trouble ourselves,” Roystan said. “We’ve a company after us, and a damaged calibrator. The company has put out the word, and no one will sell us a new one. Josune thinks we can use the calibrator off a genemod machine.”
Nika had bought plenty of genemod machines in her life. She knew the process. “You need someone certified to buy the machine for you.”
Snow sputtered. “No way. We’re not getting involved in a company war.”
But they already were involved—or Nika was, anyway, for Tamati was company.
“You’ll be leaving soon?” The Boldly Go wouldn’t wait past their allotted slot.
“As soon as the calibrator is on board.” Roystan’s fervent words were a promise.
“We get the machine afterward,” Nika said. You could never have too many mod machines, and Snow needed something to start with. She hoped it wasn’t a Dietel.
“We can’t give you the calibrator. We can give you the rest.”
“Deal,” Nika said.
* * *
• • •
The goods store was at the end of an arm off the corridor. Anyone coming this way would be heading for the store.
Josune stopped Roystan. “You stay out here and watch. They won’t recognize us, but they might recognize you.”
It looked as if it was the last thing he wanted to do. “I should—”
“Stay here.” Josune swept Nika and Snow in before her.
Nika thought Josune might be older than she looked. Ten years, maybe fifteen. She was too confident for her early-twenties body. There was something about the way young people acted—like Snow. This woman didn’t act like that.
The trader looked them over, assessing them. Nika could almost see the droop as he looked at their vendor-purchased coveralls, although his eyes did stop at Josune’s boots.
“We’re here to buy your genemod machine,” Josune told the trader.
The trader raised an eyebrow. A single brow. Modded. He wouldn’t have been able to raise it that high if it hadn’t been. If Nika weren’t in such a hurry she’d have asked him who’d done it. But not today. They didn’t have the time.
The screen displayed the view of the camera outside the shop, where Roystan was pacing. Who was he watching for? Was Nika getting herself and Snow into more trouble?
Behind her, she heard Josune. “One of our crew was in earlier.”
“Ah, yes. Of course. And as I told him, I can’t sell the machine to someone who isn’t a registered doctor or modder. I’m sure you haven’t forgotten that part.”
“We have a modder.”
Nika turned as Josune indicated her.
The trader looked Nika over, and the way he sniffed told her she didn’t look like a modder right now. “I’ll need to see your credentials.”
“You’ll see my credentials if we agree to take the machine. Not before.” Often, the old machines were partially dismantled. You got more for the scrap metal. If Roystan wanted a working calibrator he’d need the flanges as well, and they were usually the first parts to be sold off.
The trader tried to stare her down. Nika stared back, unflinching. Behind her, Josune twitched. At least she stayed silent.
“Very well.” The trader looked away first and moved to the back corner. “Here she is.” He patted a battered box that looked as if it wouldn’t hold together. A big plastic box, gray and stained, double her length, and half as wide again. An oversized coffin on casters, with a clear lid. In the early days, modders had to monitor the changes visually.
Nika sighed. A Dekker. She might have known. What else would be collecting dust in the back of a store on the Hub? Dekkers were ugly machines—nothing like her beautiful Songyans—and had the worst calibrators in the galaxy. Her first genemod machine had be
en a Dekker and because of that, she’d learned how to calibrate manually.
The company had gone broke, but not because of their calibrators.
The machines also had a nasty habit of bringing the client out early. It had happened so often they’d installed panic buttons inside the box. Not that it helped. Most people died of fright trying to get out.
It had happened to Nika once. It had been awful, waking up, knowing her lungs were filled with liquid, trying to convince her brain that she didn’t need to breathe air, that the liquid and the machine were supplying the oxygen for her, but though she knew that, instinct made her try to breathe. She’d hit the panic button, but it had taken time for her lungs, and then the machine, to drain.
Nika shuddered at the memory.
She stored her old Dekker in her lab and used it to mix components. It kept her manual calibration skills active.
The only good thing about the machines was the air cushion they moved on. Nika moved around the Dekker doing a quick check. Surprisingly, the tank was full of mutrient. Any sensible trader would have drained the tank and sold the mutrient off separately. Although, by look and smell, it was old. The tank would have to be scoured to remove all the old chemicals. Better yet, replaced.
“Nika.” Snow hung back. He kept his voice quiet. “You’re making a bad mistake. There’s a reason they don’t sell these machines to unregistered modders.”
Illegal mods were an unpleasant fact of life, and Nika herself had fixed some appalling—and oftentimes painful—modifications. But desperate times called for desperate measures.
“I’ll make sure they can’t use anything but the calibrator.” She believed them about the reason they needed the machine. Hadn’t she seen jobs for people with calibrator experience earlier at the labor pool? “Besides, Roystan agreed to give us the machine.”
“They held weapons to our head. We can’t stop them from doing what they want.”
Right now, Nika didn’t care. She wanted—they needed—to get away. If this was how they did it, this would do.
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