Last Ship Off Polaris-G: A Central Galactic Concordance Novella

by Carol Van Natta

  “Let me guess. If I refuse the scan, they keep my ship.” His lips thinned and his eyes narrowed. “That’s just farking fabulous.”

  “If it helps to know, the telepath already scanned me, and he’s good at his job. So far, he’s kept everyone’s secrets.” Including a couple of her own that could get her killed if revealed.

  She checked the console, to make sure the flitter was still being controlled by the increasingly glitchy traffic control system. TCS maintenance didn’t have as high a priority as keeping the peace long enough to get the hell off a dying planet.

  Below them, the bleached skeletons of once lushly green trees made it look like winter, even though it was barely the first days of autumn. A year ago, a virulent fungus had arrived in a seemingly innocent shipment of fuel-crop planting seeds. Funny how the pale, powdery blight affected multiple phyla of plant life and mutated faster than the bioengineers could tailor antifungals to kill it. Even funnier how it had arrived one month to the day after the Pol-G government refused to honor a CGC court order to pay the settlement company a huge penalty for early settlement debt payoff. Settlement companies invested heavily in terraforming suitable planets and marketed them to frontier settlers willing to pay, expecting to reap nearly a century of interest payments, while also selling overpriced services to the settlers. Pol-G’s decades-early debt payoff pissed off the settlement company to no end. Debates raged as to whether the company knew the blight would destroy the whole planet’s terraformed ecology, or if the company had been as unpleasantly surprised as the settlers when the royal ratfucking backfired. Either way, it wasn’t getting its penalty money now.

  She shook off her melancholy, because it wasn’t helping get anything done. The countdown clock on the console said the flitter would reach her supply depot’s airpad in twelve minutes. She folded her tablet and turned her seat so it was easier to look at Gavril.

  He turned his seat to face her. “Could you use your talent to make me want to say yes?”

  “Maybe.” She tilted her head. “Do you want me to? So you can blame me if things go chaotic?” She smiled wryly. “Which they probably will, because that’s just how we glide here on the happiest planet in the galaxy.”

  “No, I wanted to know if you were influencing me, because I’m inclined to agree to your insane project, and it’s not like me.” He blew out a noisy breath. “I don’t like people.”

  “Thank you.” She couldn’t keep the smile off her face. “You’ll probably be cursing my name hourly for the foreseeable future, but please know I’m grateful.” She hadn’t expected he’d sign on for her half-baked plan, so now she had to follow through. “Do you have time this afternoon to make a prioritized list of what you’ll need, with alternates and options?”

  He snorted. “I’ll clear my calendar.”

  She thought about giving him one of the empty offices in the supply depot, but the less anyone knew about the freighter and what she was planning to do with it, the better. She liked most of her employees, but didn’t know if they could keep a secret as big as the Diamantov.

  “Where are you staying?” She pulled out her tablet again. “Here’s what I’m thinking. I’d like to have you stay at the repair dock, because it’s far away from prying eyes. Maybe on the ship? You’ll need a vehicle, too. The city is overloaded with repossessed and abandoned flitters and haulers. I think I can work a deal to store some of their overflow at my new remote transportation warehouse.”

  “I’ll move to the dock this afternoon, if you’ll let me, even if I have to sleep in a tent, eat mealpacks, and urinate in the woods.” A bleak expression crossed his face. “You should know that the city is making me crazy. I’ve had to chem myself nightly to get any sleep.”

  She looked up from her list and gave him an assessing look. “Can you quit the chems on your own?”

  He nodded. “Yes. I don’t like them, but I can’t handle crowds.” He pointed a thumb toward the back. “A huge, empty ship will be paradise.”

  She wouldn’t find a buildmaster she trusted in time, and she wanted to trust Gavril. “It won’t be entirely empty, if I can get you some help.”

  He waved a hand in dismissal. “A few people are no problem. I’ll add specialty skills to the list.”

  “Good.” She smiled, basking in the all-too-rare sense of hope, before it got crushed again. “You’re a lifesaver.”

  2

  * Frontier Planet “Polaris-Gamma” * GDAT 3233.015 *

  Gavril hunched in his seat against the misery and despair of two hundred people that beat at his uncontrolled empathic talent. His head hurt already, and he’d only been in the Pol-G tax authority’s crowded waiting area for ten minutes. He couldn’t tell who was waiting for a regular audit arbiter and who was waiting for the secret telepathic screening, but no one was happy to be there.

  The only exception was Anitra, seated next to him, diligently working on her tablet and subvocalizing into the earwire adhered to her jaw and tucked into her right ear. She was a cool oasis of no emotions at all, thanks to her shielder talent. In the two lessons they’d had time for in the last three days, she’d taught him to recognize the difference between an active shield and simple containment. He wasn’t bad at containing his own emotions when needed, but blocking others by shutting down his talent remained elusive. He didn’t want to think about influencing the emotions of others, and couldn’t imagine doing it for multiple hundreds for crowd control, the way she claimed trained high-level empaths could.

  He straightened up in the uncomfortable seat and told himself to quit grousing. After nearly a month of sitting on his ass in a rundown hostel room in a shady neighborhood, watching his trader business and the planet’s prime city fall apart around him, even chemming himself insensible had gotten boring. The city’s joy houses had too many achingly lonely people using sex for solace. Besides, prices for everything had gone stratospheric, and he’d rather pay for food or even a good massage, to relieve the chronic tension in his neck and shoulders.

  Serving as buildmaster for refitting the Diamantov kept him busy, and gave him a remote refuge from the crowds. It was a relief to only have to interact with four other people so far, though Anitra’s efforts would soon bring more.

  He cast a sidelong glance at her. During their vacation-week affair two years ago, he’d synced with her sense of adventure and enjoyed her zest for life. She was also nova-hot sexy and felt right in his arms. They’d lived in the moment, with no regard for the past or thought to the future, and paid the price for it in the end when reality smacked them both upside the head.

  He still saw flashes of that happier woman, especially when she teased him, but she was eating, sleeping, and breathing her job, with one eye on her tablet, and the other on the clock. She presented a picture-perfect image of a harried, mid-level bureaucrat, with her conservative corporate suits, unadorned light brown skin, and always-up dark brown hair. They effectively camouflaged her creative, agile mind and her determination. She probably had the most accurate set of physical asset records in the government, owing to her patient diligence in hunting them down, and she used them to her advantage. The old ground haulers, aircars, and flitters sent to be stored at the repair dock just happened to be loaded with ship-building supplies, or just happened to be driven or flown by an unemployed metals tech, or an engineer who used to work for the repair dock, or a skilled navigator who could help get the shipcomps online.

  A huge display took up half of one wall of the tax office, illustrating the tangle of corridors and offices, and the waiting queues for each. Visitors stopped at the front kiosk to enter their request and pick up an electronic token for their place in line. The buzz of quiet conversation ebbed and flowed. He woke the percomp on his wrist to read something other than depressing newstrends about more animal extinctions, riots, and failed blockade runs, but the increasing pressure in his head interfered with his concentration. He rubbed his temples.

  A hushed conversation behind him caught his atte
ntion.

  “...that’s the sixth runner this week,” a man’s voice whispered.

  “Good. The more flatliners get themselves arrested at the blockade means more for the people who stay.” A woman’s voice, more hissed than whispered. She was a tangle of fear and anger.

  “The slaggin’ government can’t even keep the planet network up, or we could do this all online and not waste an evening here. What makes you think they’ll do any better with power or water?” Despair colored the man’s tone.

  “I’ll drill a well and put up solar collectors for the grow houses. Better than being blasted out of orbit, or giving up the land I spent my life’s savings on. Frelling blight can’t last forever.”

  The wall display blinked and chimed to indicate an update. A chorus of grumbling and groans arose when the countdown clocks added another thirty minutes to the average wait time. Several people stood and made their way to various doors, holding their blinking tokens like winning lottery tickets. The waves of emotion crashed into his head with his every heartbeat.

  A message from Anitra pinged on his percomp. They’d already set up a relay-based, closed-system secure channel to keep their comms private.

  A: You’re hurting. I can shield you, but it’ll feel like you’re suddenly deaf.

  Gavril looked at her with his peripheral vision, but couldn’t read anything in her expression as she continued to commune with her tablet. He tapped his earwire and subvocalized his reply.

  G: Yes, please. I’ll cope. I’ll trade you for a massage later.

  He’d trained as a physical therapist, before his untamed empath talent made it too uncomfortable, and he was still good with his hands, or so Anitra had said two years ago. Her fingers on the tablet slowed. Suddenly, he was alone in his head, and feeling like fog muffled all his physical senses. Intellectually, he knew that his ears still heard the sounds of voices and coughing, and his nose still smelled the mixture of ash and sweat in the room, but it all felt weirdly muted, like an experience holo in his trader ship’s tiny immersion room. As much as he’d assumed he ignored his despised talent, he obviously depended on it far more than he realized.

  G: Feels weird, like you said. Does it hurt you?

  A: No. If you don’t fight me, I can do this for hours. I can’t feel others while I’m shielding you.

  G: Problem?

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her shrug, as if to say that everything had tradeoffs.

  He took the opportunity to look at the people around him, for once without the distraction of trying not to feel them. Some looked beaten down, some looked defiant, but they all looked like they expected another shoe to drop in a room already full of them. He’d seen a smaller microcosm of it every night in the pub, before he’d started chemming himself to sleep to keep his sanity.

  His percomp pinged another message from Anitra.

  A: Blond man in red, the row near the east door, three seats down. Know him? See his pilot cert. Sixty years of commercial shipping experience.

  Gavril stood and stretched, twisting his body so he could see the man’s face in the reflection of the glass doors. He sat again and read through the list of freighters the man’s cert listed.

  G: Don’t recognize him, but I know some of the ship types he piloted. He’d be good, if he’s not a jerk.

  He saw her smile as she got his reply.

  A: If pilots’ certs listed attitude, they’d never get work.

  G: Good thing I work for myself.

  The wall display changed again, tokens lit up, and random people throughout the hall stood moments later. The east and north doors opened to disgorge a few people. The man in red stood and headed toward the north.

  Gavril twitched when the token in his hand lit up and vibrated. The readout told him to proceed to the north door labeled “Delta” and follow the blue lighting path. Anitra was already folding her tablet and stuffing it in the inside pocket of her jacket-cloak. He’d been ambivalent about her posing as his tax advisor so she could introduce him to Dammerk, the scanning telepath, but now he was grateful for her support. And for her shield, because it gave him time to shore up his defenses and become the cool-headed trader, taking in everything and giving away nothing.

  The wide hallways allowed them to walk together, side by side. When he hesitated at an intersection, waiting for the corridor lighting to tell him which way to go, Anitra caught his eye and tapped her temple. He took it as her warning she was dropping the shield. The fog around his senses lifted as the chaser lights told them to turn right. He could again feel the concentrated presence of all the people in the lobby, but distance and thick walls made it easier to tolerate.

  After a few meters, the corridor turned right again, to reveal a closed double doorway about twelve meters down at the end, all executive-gray glass with an iridescent government emblem. He and Anitra both hesitated when they saw the man in red already there, holding his token up to the wall comp.

  The doors slid open. Shouting erupted from the room. Fear and rage blasted through Gavril’s head like an explosion. He instinctively wrapped his arms around Anitra and pivoted her back around the corner. Beamer fire whined. A man’s voice cried out in pain.

  Anitra’s feet tangled with his, sending them bouncing off the wall as high-pitched stunner fire echoed.

  The pressure of emotion faded to nothing.

  Silence.

  Anitra steadied herself using his shoulder. Her face was pale and grim. “Three people...” Her expression suddenly twisted in pain, and her knees buckled. He caught and held her upright as she sagged against him.

  “We’re leaving.” He slid his arm around her waist and urged her to walk.

  She stumbled along with him a couple of steps, wincing in pain, then straightened and stopped. “We have to go back.”

  “Bad idea, unless you’re wearing flexin armor underwear.”

  “Everyone’s dead.” She rubbed her temple. “That was Dammerk’s last blast. I was the closest mind he recognized, and my shields were down. He was top-level, so he’d have blown past them anyway.” She pulled away from him. “I have to get his percomp.”

  Every interstellar trader knew never to get involved in local trouble, but he couldn’t let her go alone. “Fast, then.”

  She nodded and pushed off into a half-run. He pulled his shockstick out of his cargo pants pocket and thumbed it on as he caught up with her. It wasn’t a lethal weapon like a beamer, but it was handy in a scuffle.

  The man in red lay like a broken doll on the floor, with a charred hole in his chest. The glass doors kept trying to close, bouncing against his legs.

  Gavril held his blinking token to the wallcomp, and the doors stayed open.

  Anitra took a deep breath, then clenched her jaw tight and entered the gilded executive office. He followed, but stayed in the doorway to keep it open. The carnage took him by surprise.

  A beefy, blue-skinned, bald man lay in a heap just inside the door, a high-powered stunner still in his hand. A painfully thin, white-skinned man with a bruised and bloody face slumped sideways in the wingback chair behind a clear glass desk. Blood dripped from his empty hand onto a small hand beamer on the floor. Behind the chair, three more sets of legs were visible, where more bodies had been shoved against the wall.

  Gavril took a shallow breath, trying not to take in more of the smell of blood and voided fluids than he had to. “Shit.”

  Anitra stepped around the desk and gingerly lifted the lapel of the man’s blood-covered, maroon-striped jacket. Her hand shook as she unclasped the necklace-style percomp and pulled it off the body.

  Gavril caught her eye and pointed to the growing wet spot in the carpet, so she wouldn’t step in it. She skirted it and walked determinedly past him out into the corridor. He pocketed his shockstick as they walked away.

  They went quickly past several closed doors and the corridor turn. At the next hallway intersection, their luck ran out when a security guard walked by, slowing as she took a sec
ond lingering glance at Anitra’s gray, sweaty face.

  “Fresher?” asked Gavril, taking hold of Anitra’s elbow. “My wife is sick.”

  The guard pointed behind her. “On the left, beyond the water station.”

  Gavril hustled Anitra down the hall and shoved the fresher door open, then sealed it behind them. She staggered to the counter and took several deep, gulping breaths. “I fucking hate blood.”

  He crossed to the sink and wetted a couple of towels to hand to her. “The guard will remember us.”

  She wiped her hands and face, then stuffed the now pink-tinged towels into her jacket pocket. “Yeah.” She took another deep breath and pulled out the percomp she’d lifted off the dead man. “Dammerk’s last request was that I use this to ping a message to Kareem Ferrsi.”

  “The head of Planetary Law Enforcement?” He was on the nightly newstrends a lot, usually offering patient, measured responses to inflammatory accusations by burn-the-blight activists or delusional appeasement ideas from politicians.

  She nodded as she entered a key to open the interface, then quickly synced the percomp to her earwire. She tagged an icon in the holo display, then began subvocalizing.

  He suppressed a frown. So much for staying uninvolved. He moved back to the door and deliberately activated his empath talent as best he could, trying to get a sense of where people were in relation to the fresher. The crowded lobby was like a writhing ball of plasma strings, but he could feel smaller, closer, more distinct thread tangles that roughly corresponded to the offices they’d walked by. No one had found the bloody executive office yet, or he’d have felt their shock.

  Anitra started to close the percomp interface, but jerked when it vibrated with an incoming ping. She read it rapidly and answered via subvocalization.

  He tuned it out and went back to using his ears and his talent to watch their backs. She’d been straight and honest with him so far, which was more than he could say of anyone else on the planet. He trusted she’d tell him what the frelling hell was going on soon enough.