Flotsam

by R J Theodore

  “In the future,” she said, turning back to the mirror, “I’m going to have to ask you to test your scientific research on your own time.”

  The blood ran a rivulet down her cheek and around her chin again, as though she had never wiped it off.

  Scrimshaw was silent a moment. Seemed to process her sarcasm and understand she was not going to hurt xin. “Of course, Captain. I would like to apologize. I was unprepared for their uncivilized response to my presence.”

  “Uncivilized, huh,” Talis said out of one side of her mouth as she pressed gauze to her cheek.

  That night they grappled Wind Sabre to a small island along the buoyed path through the storm cloud, out of sight in case other ships approached. Dug, least likely to fall asleep no matter how tired, took first watch so the others could get a short reprieve. He was armed for a battle, ready in case they had any more zalika visitors.

  Talis would have the third watch, after Tisker. Ten blessed hours to sleep and get some food in her. In that order.

  The cuts on her cheek were just deep enough that she could have stitched them if she wanted. It was a choice between a messy line of scars if she wanted the guaranteed heal of sutures or tape strips that might come undone and let the wound reopen. No one on board was a particularly tidy seamstress, so she went with the small strips and some medical paste to hold the skin together while the wound closed.

  She returned to her cabin after a hot shower in the head nearest the steam pumps. Didn’t bother to turn any lights on. Dropped her towel on the floor and collapsed into her bunk, her hair still damp.

  The pillows reached up to cradle her head, and the blanket sighed softly across her. The silence of the room with the purr of the engines beyond and the rain gusting in sheets against the glass and wood around her promised uninterrupted slumber.

  Her eyes shot open, sleep forgotten.

  Someone was in her cabin.

  Chapter 22

  Her hand found the light switches on the panel behind her head. She pressed the middle button for the red nighttime chart-reading lights. It wouldn’t do to be blinded by the cabin’s full lights, and double her vulnerability.

  Only a few paces away, Hankirk sat at her desk, one ankle over the opposite knee. He slouched slightly, elbows on the arms of the carved wooden desk chair, fingers tented. Looking all gods-rotted smug.

  He was still in the civilian clothes he’d been wearing the last time she saw him. There was a black streak across one sleeve. He must have climbed aboard along the refuel lines at Subrosa and stowed away with their coal reserves. He was probably even dirtier than she could tell in the half light.

  She couldn’t help but remember the hobby lights at Jasper’s shop which had been much the same as the chart lighting in her cabin now. The body of her old friend. The assassins hired by Hankirk, whose revolvers were now stowed in the drawer of the desk next to him.

  “What, Imperial captains can’t afford their own passage?” she said, and swung her legs under her to sit up. She gathered the sheet in front of herself with one white-knuckled fist. Kept the other hand free, moving it toward the pistol she kept tucked alongside her mattress pad.

  “We need to talk again,” he said. Apparently his idea of an explanation for stowing aboard.

  She spared that a humorless laugh, then took a deep breath and resisted the temptation to pull the gun on him. She’d never meant it for ex-boyfriends.

  “A chance to ambush us in the storms, more like.”

  “I need that ring.”

  For this, you’re gonna climb aboard my ship?

  “Told you back on Subrosa,” she said. “I don’t have it. You should’ve snuck into the alien captain’s bunk. That ring is on the other side of the border by now.”

  “I need you to get it back for me.”

  “The hell would I do that for? I owe you some favor I forget about? You threatened to hang me and my crew. My wrencher’s still nursing the bruises your crew gave her. You shot at my ship, stalked me to Subrosa, and sent assassins after me and mine. Now you’ve stowed away on my ship and lurked in the shadows of my cabin. You get your eyeful? No, I owe you a long cold drop is what I owe you.”

  “You gave it to the aliens. Foreigners. What do they care about Peridot? They’ll take their knowledge and leave, and where does that put us? If they take the ring, what good is that?”

  “It’s about seventy-five thousand presscoins good to me. And if you want it so badly, I’d rather that ring leave our atmosphere with strangers than give you the rotted thing.”

  “Talis, please,” he said, standing and taking a step toward her.

  That did it. She pulled out the pistol. Thumb-cocked it.

  “You came here to beg? Really?”

  “I came here to reason with you. I’m trying to save the world. I give you my word.”

  “People keep accusing me of being reasonable lately.” She pressed the intercom near the light switch, acting like she didn’t care that the movement required briefly baring her chest. “Someone bring some rope to my cabin, please.”

  “Aye, Cap.” Tisker’s sleepy voice, confused.

  “We have a minute.” She motioned back to the chair with the barrel of her gun, and used the back of her elbow to switch the full cabin lights on, squinting to prepare herself for the flood of brighter illumination. “Say your piece.”

  He blinked as the lights over her shoulder caught him off guard. Hesitated, then let out a defeated sigh and sat back down. “They’re up to something.”

  “Everyone is up to something. You certainly are. What makes your something more righteous than theirs? Than mine?”

  Gods, she thought. Am I truly defending the aliens?

  Hankirk ran both hands through his hair, massaging his scalp. He inhaled audibly through his nose. “The ring belongs to Peridot’s people.”

  “Your people, you mean.” Here was the crux of it. She felt it coming.

  “You’re one of my people, Talis. We’re the true heirs of the gods’ power.”

  Talis made a disgusted sound and stood to claim her trousers from the pile of clothes she’d left on the floor. Kept the pistol trained on him, casually as she could while trying to keep herself covered and pull clothes on at the same time. He made no move but watched her; had the decency, at least, not to ogle. His gaze met hers and silently pleaded.

  “Can’t you feel it? Something is wrong with our world. I’ve known it in my blood since I was a boy. We shouldn’t be this way. This broken planet. These five races. It’s wrong in a way that has to be fought.”

  “By Silus’s cosmic wind,” she swore, borrowing one of Tisker’s pleasantries. “You haven’t changed. The same unrelenting racist zealot I remember.”

  “I—” he started, but she cut him off.

  “You’re seriously going to sit there and tell me I should help you steal back that ring so you can just… erase four of Peridot’s peoples? That’s your big sell? Genocide?”

  “We want unity, not destruction.” He leaned forward, hands open as if they held evidence of his sincerity. “I’ve been to the Wind Monks’ drifting archives. I’ve seen the Lost Codex. We were all one people once.”

  The muscles in her forearm tensed. She wanted to crack him one good across the temple with the butt of the pistol. Do the world a favor and toss him out after that mermaid. Zalika. Whatever.

  “Sure, once,” she said. “This planet look to you like it can all just go back to the happy fantasy time you and your fatcrat Veritor friends can’t let up about?”

  The door to her cabin opened and Tisker entered. His eyebrows jumped at the sight of Hankirk. At his captain, half-dressed. Then, true to his character, he accepted the situation as it was, no questions. Unleashed that rogue’s grin and crossed the cabin, taking her pistol so she could get her shirt on.

  “This guy bothering
you, Cap?”

  Hankirk sat back in the seat, hands up in surrender. “All of history can be corrected,” he said in answer to Talis.

  “Oh yeah,” Talis said to Tisker. “He most certainly is.”

  Talis didn’t have the right combination of character deficiencies to outright murder someone, much as she’d fantasized about Hankirk’s death lately. If she did, she might have saved herself the trouble and offed him back in the Tined Spoon District of Subrosa. Or let Dug finish him off back when he’d first overtaken them on The Serpent Rose.

  Instead, they left the bastard alive again, albeit unarmed and without shelter, on the rain-washed island they’d moored to for the night. He was drenched only moments after they pushed him down the gangway to shore, destined for pneumonia if the mermaids didn’t get him first.

  No, not murder. But her character did have deficiencies enough to take more than a slice of pleasure in leaving the man behind.

  It occurred to her that they could have tied him up and carried him along in the brig. Probably would have made a bit more sense. Could be leverage later on.

  She shuddered. Keep him that close? No, thank you. Better to have him well out of the way, unable to tangle himself in their knotted ’locks any longer.

  Sleep finally came, once she crawled back into her bunk, and dreamed of Hankirk’s lost expression as Wind Sabre made her way back into the buoy lanes and left him behind.

  “What do you think? Does she see us?”

  Tisker handed the scope over, his eyes locked on the bright shape out in the dark.

  Instead of looking at the border patrol ship that Tisker had spotted, Talis scanned the rest of the sky through the glass. The gold pumpkins glowing from port made her squint against their brightness. Nexus, green light source off their starboard side. She didn’t even have to look to know where that was. There was a dull ache in her head from the proximity to it, already, and that peculiar tightness in her chest was getting stronger. It felt like a weight being pulled out of quicksand, and her chest was the quicksand.

  “Not yet. She’s only flashing reflections for us. We’re too far off and in the dark spaces between to catch that light.” She handed the scope back to Tisker. “Plus we’ve still got the storm at our back. But keep an eye on her. If she comes around, I want to know about it. Fly us on her dark side, low as you dare.”

  “Little stray wisp of storm cloud,” he murmured.

  She nodded. The glow station pumpkins couldn’t backlight them if Wind Sabre didn’t eclipse the patrol ship’s view.

  Sophie came up to the deck, burdened with a tray of mugs. Scrimshaw walked beside her, xist hands empty. Talis chafed. Whether Sophie had declined help or whether it hadn’t occurred to the alien to offer was unclear. Sophie’s smile was easy as ever, though. It seemed the lack of selflessness in their guest was a point that only bothered Talis.

  Steam rose from the four steel cups, and Talis felt her tensed jaw muscles relax in anticipation of the comforting drink.

  “Border patrol ship,” she told them, gratefully accepting the coffee when it was offered. “Bone side, Bone make.”

  Sophie traded the tray of coffees to Tisker, taking the scope in its place and having a look at the clinker-hulled sloop for herself.

  Dug, who had given Tisker a break at the helm, accepted the remaining cup and leaned his hip against the wheel to compensate for taking a hand away. He’d been dangerously quiet since Scrimshaw came aboard, whether or not he was in the alien’s presence. Still obeyed commands, still took his duties seriously, but her friend was walled up behind those angry eyes, out of her reach.

  He made no comment. Not about the Bone ship, not about being so close to home for the first time in so long. Talis had done her best to keep their runs in Cutter skies while he sorted out his sorrows. She hadn’t been looking forward to the day she knew was coming. Eventually business would drive them back out into the rest of the world. They’d have to pass through Bone territory to get to Rakkar or Vein islands, which were surrounded on all sides by the Bone, the only people with the capability to hold the Cutter encroachment at bay. The Cutter Empire had nipped at the edges of their territory for generations, and though they managed to overtake a majority of Peridot’s atmosphere, there was still enough of the world beyond Cutter skies and Talis knew they’d have to venture back sooner rather than later.

  And sooner was here.

  She took a thoughtful sip of the coffee. The leathery taste of whiskey stowed away in the bitterness of the brew. Good girl, Sophie. They were all bone-soaked from the storm and more than a little bit in need of warming.

  With the relationship between the Imperials and Bone tribal leaders as strained as it was, a ship smuggling goods out of Cutter skies was more likely to receive a warm welcome from Bone border patrols. The sloops would intercept, make a show of inspection, and then generally stay aboard for drinks, maybe gamble on some dice for a bit, before sending the Cutter miscreants on their way. Anyone who defied the Empire had a leg up in Bone skies, as far as they saw it.

  But she had Dug. She’d always figured that when the time came, they’d just dress him up in a shirt or jacket, maybe both. Keep those scars out of sight, and hope none of the border patrol crew recognized him. That had always been a long shot and a fool’s hope.

  And now they had an alien aboard.

  While the rest of the world bowed until their noses scraped the floor, welcoming the aliens diplomatically and with a greedy eye on their gleaming ship, the Bone had remained standoffish. The Vein employed Bone ships to guard their tight cluster of marble cities, so the Bone respected that the Vein were very interested in having the alien ship stop by to trade information. But then, not all Bone tribes were employed by the Vein, and those that weren’t chafed at that inequality. There might be some motivation to hassle the aliens on that account.

  The Bone government, as much as that term applied, was a council of the tribal leaders. They were meant to come together and represent their tribes’ interests, and make decisions that would serve their common good. But there was no way to enforce that each tribe stand by the council’s decisions. There might be scuffles if the decision was heavily weighted in one direction and the opposition was limited to a single tribe. But if the matter was more divisive, it was almost impossible to back up decisions with the power to enforce them.

  The Vein had a similar governing body. They called it a parliament, not a council. But the Vein lived in such close proximity to one another that their skirmishes were almost all political. Talis knew there were assassins among them, but the violence was on a much smaller scale than the Bone tended toward.

  She watched Dug. Boiling beneath the surface with such malevolence. At a word from her, he’d dispatch Scrimshaw, and be relieved for it. No doubt if they met the Bone border patrol sloop, and that crew learned of the aliens’ intended destination, their reaction would be similar.

  “Will it be a problem, Captain Talis, to ‘sneak’ by it?” Scrimshaw liked the word as much as xist captain had.

  “Might be. Depends on what she does. We can fly below the horizon, or maybe far above. But if they’re any good at their jobs, they’re going to be looking out for a maneuver like that. For little ships with dark hulls that slip across off the traveling plane.”

  “Perhaps I can be of assistance,” Scrimshaw said. Xe produced the glass tablet from a pouch at the back of xist waistband.

  Talis turned to face xin. Another sip of the spiked coffee to steady herself. Couldn’t believe she was about to say: “Let’s hear it.”

  The alien laid a pale hand on the dark screen. Its display activated, casting strange shadows upward over xist face, and xe deftly navigated a series of menus to activate the function xe wanted. The rigid tips of xist fingers made the barest tapping sound against its front and back. Talis tried not to marvel at the alien technology but did wonder if Sophie
had ever gotten Scrimshaw to hand the tablet over for her inspection. Xe looked up.

  “My vessel is not far away. Their presence might provide the border patrol ship with what they expect to see, allowing your ship to remain undetected.”

  “A distraction,” Tisker said, and whistled. “You’re getting the hang of being sneaky, aren’t you?”

  “Only the word is new to us,” Scrimshaw said, straightening xist back to stand even taller than xe already was. “The concept is not.”

  Talis wished he hadn’t asked.

  “What do you think, Captain?”

  The scope was stowed along the wheel’s pedestal again. Sophie’s hands wrapped around her warm mug. Didn’t take much time on deck to get a chill.

  Talis pretended to consider the alien’s idea. Pursed her lips between sips of coffee. Fact was, she was looking for another option. The alien’s was good. Easy. Likely to work. The Yu’Nyun were known for creeping silently through the skies, explaining themselves to no one. And they’d caused no real trouble so far, even with whatever they’d learned from the Rakkar about alchemy. With the casual threat of the cannon protruding from their underbelly, a single Bone sloop was unlikely to engage them unprovoked.

  There wasn’t anything about the plan she could pick apart. But she should have been able to come up with something else on her own. On her ship, aliens—any strangers—didn’t get to make the plans.

  But it was a good plan. And in its presence, she failed to conceive of another.

  So she nodded, slowly. “Yeah, all right. We can give it a shot.”

  “I will make the arrangements,” Scrimshaw said, and stepped away a few feet to send the transmission. Xist voice grated and popped, hissed and purred, as xe spoke to xist ship. The call was brief, thankfully. But long enough for the sound of their language to make her jaw tense again, working to further the headache she already had. She did pick up some of the words Scrimshaw had taught her and Sophie. Ship and go and other words that jived with the message xe said xe’d deliver. Xe also said sneak in Common Trade, apparently showing off the favored vocabulary to xist shipmates. She could see why they liked it. The way the letters ran together did sound at home among their snake-spider linguistic noises.