Stars Uncharted

by S. K. Dunstall

  “We’ve fresh mutrient. Naolic acid.”

  Snow shivered.

  “Arrat crystals, aluminum salts, dendrian salts.”

  “Dendrian salts?” Snow looked up with the first sign of life he’d shown. “How much did you get?” And he became more animated as he tapped on the screen.

  Nika watched over his shoulder. “Don’t you dare change your hair color.”

  “They’ll be looking for someone with red hair.”

  “It’s not red. It’s red-gold. And Snow, before you do anything I want a gene read on your hair. I’ll pay you for it.”

  “You can have it.”

  “Snow, don’t give away gene reads and don’t take anything less than a thousand credits for one.”

  He looked at her.

  “I’m serious. Now, I’ll pay you five hundred credits.”

  “Snow,” Josune said, when Snow shrugged. “Don’t you dare. Charge her a thousand.”

  Snow looked from Nika to Josune and back. “Three thousand,” he said.

  “Deal,” Nika said promptly. “Add the gene read, Snow. I want it before you do anything, and don’t you dare color your hair.”

  “It is rather distinctive,” Roystan said.

  “I’ll make it short, then.”

  “That’s what most people would do. They’ll be looking for someone with a shaved head,” Nika said. “Or short, red hair.”

  “Red-gold,” Josune and Roystan said together, and shared a smile.

  “Red-gold,” Nika agreed. “Make your hair longer, Snow. Extend it to halfway down your back.”

  “Halfway?” Snow looked doubtfully at his design. He shook his head. “We can extend hair a centimeter, maybe two, but it breaks after that.”

  “Hair is a protein,” Nika said. “You just have to ensure that it extrudes smoothly and doesn’t break.” She touched the screen. “Here’s where it’s going to break. How are you going to stop that?”

  Roystan collected Josune’s empty coffee mug. “Snow will be fine.”

  At least someone would.

  “Josune. I’m sorry. I—”

  Josune looked away. He had nothing to be sorry about.

  “You don’t need me to find things for you. You were doing better on your own. Fourteen worlds. I only ever found one.”

  But the Hassim had never found transurides.

  Roystan’s hand moved under her chin and turned her gently to face him. “But maybe I could help you look.” There was a pause that seemed to last forever. “If you’d have me.”

  She leaned her head against his chest to hide the sudden tears that welled. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s time I stopped chasing something someone already found. Maybe it’s time to settle.” A home with Roystan. She could fit in with that. Even if it was out on the edge of the legal zone.

  He moved his arm across her back and drew her close. “Don’t give up on your dream, Josune. We could work through what information we have, what Feyodor had.”

  “I’m not the only one with dreams.”

  “Maybe some of us had stopped dreaming. Maybe it’s time we started again.”

  Josune stayed in the circle of his arm. He was like a sparrow in her arms. She gave a choked laugh. “You need to eat more.” She was going to carry protein bars around in her pocket. Then she wouldn’t have to move.

  * * *

  • • •

  Snow was in the machine. Carlos was asleep. Jacques was cooking. Nika frowned at a DNA sequence on the nearest wall screen.

  “Is that Snow?” Josune asked. “What’s wrong?” Snow was competent enough to do his own mod, so what was Nika’s expression for?

  “Not Snow. Roystan. This is a typical Giwari cell mod.” Nika tapped the screen. “See, here. And here.” She put her finger on the end of the cell. “He never touches the telomeres. I studied him. He wasn’t a modest man. He documented everything.

  “In his early life he played around with memories, worked with them until it became illegal. The rest of his life was devoted to modifying DNA. There was nothing in his notes, in his life—in his work—about reducing cell senescence.”

  “What’s that?” If they traveled long with Nika they’d learn a whole new language.

  “Cells deteriorating with age.” Nika turned back to the image again. “Nothing about modding telomeres either. Do you know what I think?”

  “What?”

  “Your longevity”—with a nod to Roystan—“is a by-product of something else he did.”

  “Longevity. That’s an intriguing way of putting it.”

  “It is intriguing.” Nika turned around. As if she was looking for answers. She stopped suddenly. “Of course.” She swung back to Roystan. “Giwari wasn’t stupid. And you had access to one thing no one else did.”

  Josune felt like clapping a hand to her own forehead. Of course. “The location of the transurides.”

  “Exactly.” Nika’s finger was strong enough to push Roystan back. “You’re his client. One day, you might regret what you did. You might come back and ask him to reverse it. If I were Giwari, I’d have a backup plan for that. People change their minds.”

  “Are you saying he programmed the coordinates into my genes?”

  “Of course not. You wouldn’t tell him where it was.”

  “So what—”

  “Your memory of it.”

  “So he put my memories into my genes? Can you do that?”

  “Of course not. It’s a key. He put the code for unlocking your memory into your genes.”

  Roystan scratched his head.

  Josune tried not to hope. She wasn’t an explorer anymore. She’d retired. But was it possible? “Do you know how to use the key?”

  “Not yet. But I’ll work it out.” Typical Nika, with no room for doubt or false modesty. “I bet whatever he did took a massive chunk of transurides. Otherwise it wouldn’t have taken.”

  “That, I do remember.” Roystan held his cupped hand, palm up.

  “I wish I had my Songyan. You have the most fascinating body I’ve ever had a chance to work with.”

  Roystan made a deprecating movement with his hands. “My body. All yours.” His stomach rumbled. “Provided you feed it at intervals.”

  He made for Jacques, in Snow’s kitchen. “I’m starved.”

  44

  NIKA RIK TERRI

  Two days later the police and company men had dispersed. According to their own personal news source—Banjo, who visited on the second day to see if Snow needed anything—the criminals had slipped past the cordon and were long gone.

  Nika stayed in the shop front with Snow when Banjo arrived, dusting their fast-dwindling modding supplies. Ready if Snow needed help. The rest of them went into the back room, out of sight, but watching and listening.

  Banjo glanced at Nika, then took Snow to one side to talk. He wouldn’t have known her for the same woman he’d met the other day. Wouldn’t have known any of them, except for Roystan—whom even Nika wasn’t prepared to touch for the moment. Quick, cosmetic changes—a couple of hours in a genemod machine—but enough to last until they got off-world. Which they planned to do immediately after Banjo’s unanticipated visit.

  Carlos’s markings had been enhanced and enlarged. Nika had inked them by hand. They’d wear off, but in the meantime, he looked truly fearsome. Jacques—under protest—had lost half his size.

  “You’ll get it back,” Nika had told him. “After all, Roystan can eat different foods now. Lots to experiment on.”

  “Surely you can leave me with the one thing that belongs to me.”

  “For your own safety, Jacques,” Roystan said. “And ours.”

  He’d muttered under his breath but hadn’t argued any more.

  Josune’s skin was now a single color, her head shaved. Nika
mourned the loss of the dendritic markings. That had been a good mod.

  She had left her own Dietel-patched skin, although it hurt her soul to do so. No one would look for Nika Rik Terri with obviously patched skin. Even Leonard Wickmore would expect her to change it as soon as she could.

  The criminals apparently—according to Banjo again—“had a decoy ship here at the spaceport. Kept the police here at the docks while they escaped overland.”

  Banjo couldn’t fail to know that one of the “criminals” was a red-headed man. Or to notice that same redhead now wore his much-longer hair—darkened with oil—in small plaits all over his head. Or that he’d lost ten years in age. Nika suspected that was the reason for the very slight emphasis on the apparently.

  “Someone tried to assassinate Eaglehawk’s Executive Wickmore while he was at the body modder’s. Nika Rik Terri’s, no less. He lost an arm, half a leg, and an eye.”

  It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person. That sort of damage took time to repair, and some eye replacements didn’t take well. The pity was that he hadn’t died.

  “He’ll be in a tank for months.”

  “What happened to Rik Terri?” Snow asked.

  “Rumor has it her boyfriend did away with her. That’s why Executive Wickmore was there. She did work for him on occasion, and she went missing a couple of weeks ago. Parts of the boyfriend were found. Five other bodies were identified too, one being Nikolas Comantra, a specialist engineer from Songyan Company. There was a sixth body. Currently unidentified. The police are still trying to work out what happened.” Banjo leaned close, and Nika strained to hear. “I don’t want to see you go, but if you need transport, I might know someone.”

  This was the man who’d tried to extort credits from Snow mere weeks ago.

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  Banjo opened a link and brought up a contact. “Tell them I sent you.”

  “Thank you.” Snow hesitated. “Look, about your mod. I’m—”

  “I love my mod. People look at me now and smile. I don’t hurt anymore.”

  “That was because you went to a bad modder to start with.”

  Nika smiled. You couldn’t keep Snow’s personality down for long.

  “Make sure you go to a good one next time.”

  “Maybe you’ll be back by then.”

  “You’ve got two years before you need another mod.”

  “You’re a good man, Bertram.” Banjo finally turned to go. “If you ever need help, you know who to call.”

  “Thank you.” Snow stood up too, and walked with him to the door. He stood staring in the direction Banjo had gone, until Nika joined him. “It’s like you gave him a different personality when you changed his looks.”

  Nika said, “Sometimes your personality is defined by your looks. That’s what a good modder does, Snow. It gives the client the confidence to be themselves. It makes them happy.”

  Behind them, Josune checked out the contact Banjo had left.

  “What will you do?” Snow asked, as they stared into the street together.

  Where could she go? Leonard Wickmore would hunt her down and destroy her.

  Josune joined them at the door, Roystan at her back.

  “Come with us,” Josune said. “We’re hunting transurides. And new worlds. There’s safety in numbers, and we’ll be a long way from Eaglehawk.”

  “Besides,” Carlos called, from inside. “Who’s going to fix Roystan when he needs it if you don’t come?”

  To finish the work Giwari didn’t even know he’d created; to perfect the mod that finally made the genemod machine live up to its name.

  “What about you, Snow?” He didn’t have anywhere to go either, but it wasn’t the time to point that out. She owed Snow a studio. And some training.

  “I am your apprentice, aren’t I? Don’t I have to go where you go?”

  Nika nodded, and took it as the tacit okay Snow meant it to be.

  “Why not,” she said to Josune. It would be nice to be part of a team; to have friends. “Let’s go mod the galaxy, Snow, with these crazy explorers.”

  Roystan put a hand on her shoulder, a hand on Snow’s. “Welcome to the crew.”

  “You do understand,” Snow said, as they turned back inside. “I want a Songyan of my own.”

  There’d be a lot of modding—from both of them—before he was ready for that.

  Nika looked forward to it.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks once again to our agent, Caitlin Blasdell, and our editor, Anne Sowards, both of whom provided invaluable input to the early drafts and made the book so much better, as they always do.

  To our copyeditor, Amy J. Schneider. To Judith Lagerman, who designed the book cover.

  To everyone else at Ace who turned this into a book for us.

  Our beta readers, Jenny and Arthur. (Sorry we got the book to you so late, Arthur.) Thanks for reading the book and for your feedback.

  Our family, who are there for us always.

  And to you, our readers, who add a whole new dimension to writing a novel.

  S. K. Dunstall is the pseudonym for a writing team of two sisters. Together they are the national bestselling authors of Confluence, Alliance, and Linesman. They live in Melbourne, Australia. Visit them on the Web at skdunstall.com.

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