Samael's Fire

by L. K. Rigel

  The closet was full of new clothes. Ugh. Everything was styled on the slutty side, but it all looked like it would fit. She selected cherry red hemp flight pants and a black top with capped sleeves and a stand-up collar. The colors, with her painted cheeks and lips, set off her black hair and blue eyes.

  She was to meet Mike on the planet side of the station. She programmed Blue Marble into her suite’s compad, and as she walked through the corridors green lights flashed to indicate the turns. They led to an elevator with Ppod written beside the door.

  Inside the elevator a pleasant disembodied male voice said, “Welcome to the International Space Station People Pod. Hand anchors are provided for your safety and comfort. This message will not repeat.” The artificial gravity kicked off. Char noticed the hand-holds in the walls similar to the footholds in the Space Junque, but she preferred the free-floating experience. The utter relaxation of weightlessness was lovely.

  Until the AG kicked back on and her feet hit the floor. She didn’t fall, but it was a shock to the knees.

  “You have arrived at your destination,” said the pleasant male voice. The elevator opened outside the entrance to the Blue Marble. There had been no sense of movement or any feeling for the distance she’d traveled.

  Char’s relaxed mood deepened as she heard the music coming from the bar. Either the singer had programmed the legendary Queen Latifah into her mic or she was doing a fantastic natural imitation. Char had the sense she was walking on air, and it took a moment for her to believe she wasn’t going to fall. The entire floor of the Blue Marble bar was clear, a window to the world below.

  “Hey, gorgeous.” Mike took her hands and kissed her cheek. “You’re as beautiful as ever.”

  “You’re pretty gorgeous yourself.” His light brown hair was brushed straight up with the tips bleached blond. It made him seem more daring, less bureaucratic. He wore a tailored suit of black silk and a neon blue silk shirt open to his solar plexus. He wrapped his arms around her and rocked her, his chest much broader than she remembered. It felt wonderful—too wonderful. There was too much emotion in him. He must have confused her with Sky.

  “You’ve been working out.” She pulled away and tried to act casual.

  “I wish.” His face was flushed. “There’s never time.”

  He was using enhancements, then. Yes. His once-hazel eyes had turned emerald green. His exquisite clothes gave him the aura of power. Was he becoming a courtier, a suck-up? Or maybe Jake right. Mike was better connected than he’d let on.

  “I had some clothes and things sent to your room from one of the shops on Vacation Station. I thought you’d be close to Sky’s size.”

  Poor guy. It had to be hard for him to see the duplicate of his lost love walk through the door. Hell, all this had stirred up her pain too. She gave him another hug and saw Jake Ardri coming toward them from the bar.

  “Hey, Mike.” Jake joined them, holding a drink. It seemed impossible that she’d first met him only a few hours ago, standing just so with an iced latte. “Meadowlark.”

  She didn’t have feelings for Jake. The world was cracking up. She wouldn’t let herself have feelings for anybody. So why was she so disappointed when he took the chair on Mike’s side of the sofa? There was a perfectly good empty seat at her left side.

  Jake was a little taller than Mike. Seeing the two side by side, it was clear whose good looks were natural and whose were enhanced. Jake’s foo-foo drink had an origami dragon impaled on a floating strawberry. He swallowed half the pretty concoction in one gulp then bit into the strawberry, his lips stained by the fruit.

  “I see you’re taking good care of our girl,” he said to Mike.

  Cripes. It made her all tingly inside when he said our girl. Mike’s guttural hmm felt territorial, practically a growl. It did not produce tingles.

  “I didn’t think you’d be back so soon,” Char said.

  “I almost didn’t make it back at all. The Junque’s com system is buggy. I had trouble docking.”

  “I’ll send a tech to help Rani,” Mike said. “It’s the least I can do. And Jake, I’m sorry about Tyler.”

  “Excellency!” A heavy middle-aged man called out from the middle of the floor and headed for their table, followed by a thinner, younger version of himself. “How fortunate to find you here.” Without asking he sat down in the chair beside Char. He ignored her, though he spilled out of the chair and his knee pushed against hers. He was the very model of an incompetent mid level bureaucrat eager for face time with his superior.

  “Reynaldo.” Mike leaned back and spread his arms on the sofa. “I take it you received the contract.”

  Excellency. Char sighed. What else did she not know about Mike Augustine?

  Reynaldo’s companion, equally transfixed by His Excellency, sat across the cocktail table from Char. When he noticed Jake, he jumped. His gaze darted about the Blue Marble, as if he expected to see someone else. Reynaldo giggled. Creepy.

  “Hello, Jake,” the young one said.

  “Why, hello there, Geraldo.” Jake finished off his strawberry.

  “Where’s Rani?”

  “Nervous?” Jake’s chuckle was devious. “Let’s see. The last thing I heard Rani say about you was ‘when I see that insect again, I’m going to squish him like a fly.’”

  “Ah.” Geraldo blanched.

  “Hold your water. You got lucky. She stayed at the V for some R&R.”

  Vacation Station. Most Coveted Destination Not On Earth was its false motto. This was the actual most coveted destination not on earth. The I—the Imperial Space Station.

  Geraldo seemed highly relieved that seven-foot-tall, muscle-bound, no-nonsense Rani was taking R&R on the V. He relaxed and turned his attention to Char, openly examining her as if he was evaluating a horse.

  If Rani didn’t like this unctuous little man, then Char liked Rani more.

  “Excellency.” Reynaldo waved at two servers, a male and female, motioning them to the table. “Allow us to celebrate.”

  The servers set down trays loaded with food. They were dressed alike as someone’s fantasy of sex slaves. If you could call it dressed. Naked but for leather belts and harnesses and short leashes hanging from their chokers. At first, Char thought they were shaved, but they must be mutants, naturally hairless, bald and without eyelashes or eyebrows or any other body hair. Like Rani, they hadn’t gone ghost. Not yet, anyway; the male was dangerously thin.

  Supposedly, mutants were not allowed off planet. Mike avoided her questioning look, and the others didn’t seem to think anything was amiss. Certainly everyone accepted Rani being in orbit.

  Geraldo pulled the female server to him and buried his face in her stomach. He ran his hand over her backside and moaned a little as he squeezed her cheek. He stuck his tongue into her bellybutton. Char looked away, only to realize scenes like this were happening all over the bar.

  This was why she’d always resisted coming up here. She would never be one of the sophisticated people.

  Reynaldo sighed. “Not now, Geraldo.”

  Geraldo tweaked one of the server’s nipples and pressed his thumb against the credit unit on her belt to give her a tip. “Run along then.”

  Jake’s face was a blank, but Char felt certain he’d be glad to join Rani in squishing Geraldo like a fly. Good. She’d help.

  Mike seemed unperturbed. He tasted the champagne offered by the wine steward and pronounced it acceptable. “To Sanguibahd.”

  The trays were loaded with fresh fruits and vegetables and dips and sauces. Char’s mouth watered. The colors alone were exciting—bright reds, greens, and yellows. It was ages since she’d had anything from hydroponics. Store-bought food was so bland, sometimes she’d go for days on protein drinks and lattes and vitamin pills.

  “Delicious.” She bit into a red-orange cherry tomato. “I can taste the nutrients.”

  “We stock from orbit when we can,” Jake said. “Food up here beats anything grown in the ground.”

/>   “I’ve always wanted to see the new hydroponics annex.” The thought of it brought Char’s old life back.

  “I’ll run you over there after dinner.” Mike ran his fingers over her wrist.

  “You’re into hydroponics?” Jake looked surprised.

  Why shouldn’t he be? She’d given him no reason to think she was no more than an unproductive ornament, saved from the chaos below because she was related to Mike’s fiancée. Mike pulled his hand away abruptly, as if he again realized that she wasn’t Sky.

  “Char helped design the annex,” he said.

  “That’s generous,” Char said. “I was an intern. I was in my doctoral program working with the design team, but I quit the project before it was installed.”

  “Quit?” Geraldo practically sneered.

  “Char’s sister was with Tesla,” Mike said. “She’s been in mourning.”

  “Half the planet is in mourning,” Geraldo said. “And the other half soon will be. No one has the right to withhold their … gifts anymore.”

  “Artless, but true.” Reynaldo bit off half a cherry tomato and stuck his tongue in the other half. That guy had a weird fetish. “The survival of the human race might well come down to one woman’s refusal to give what she can. It’s what Sanguibahd is all about.”

  The two tipped their glasses to each other.

  “The land around Corcovado is blessed.” Creepy coming from Geraldo, hardly the reverent type. “We’ve discovered a natural artesian aquifer. Clean fresh water. A pristine environment to keep the girls healthy. We’re calling it Sanguibahd.”

  He must have come up with the name himself, he was so proud of it.

  “Blood City,” Char said.

  “A sanctuary for fertile females.”

  “But no one has a natural pregnancy anymore.”

  Women’s fertility had long been undependable. In the 2010 Spill, the oil company used dispersants in their attempts to conceal the gravity of the disaster. Those chemicals infused endocrine disruptors into the ecosystem. At first only the local fish, plankton, and birds were affected. But the slick spread to currents that channeled the whole mess into the Atlantic, and the tainted birds and plankton and fish were subsumed into the food chain.

  Eerily reminiscent of the collapsing bee colonies, women began to develop fertility problems. Within ten years half the females on the planet were infertile. Another quarter suffered from incompetent uterus syndrome at six to seven months gestation. Now, a generation later, some said the infertility had tapered off. Some said it was getting worse. The Imperial Census knew the truth, but the information was classified.

  To be safe, most babies were baggers now, engineered at dedicated hospitals.

  “Sanctuary.” Char said. “Safekeeping from pollution?”

  “Pollution. Mischief. Fertility wasted on the undeserving.”

  “Undeserving?” A chill passed through Char. “You sound like the TU.”

  The 2010 Gulf Spill had stirred up religious types. The Rise and the creation of the New Dead Sea brought some to apocalyptic ecstasy. The Talibanos Unidos had believed the end times would come to this generation, and they were glad to bring them on. They sorted people into the deserving and undeserving and announced that god had commanded them to wipe out the undeserving.

  Then two years ago in the Pacific Zone, the TU set off dirty bombs throughout the entire undeserving Los Angeles/San Diego corridor, killing millions—including Char’s parents. The TU rendered the region unlivable and achieved their goal’s opposite. After the Section 5 Outrage, even politicians made no show of religious belief. The names of god became curses, stripped of their capital letters.

  When the DOGs wiped out the last remnant of the TU, Char had bought a round of drinks to toast them. It was the last time they’d all been together, Char and Brandon and Sky and Mike. A week later the DOGs set off C4 explosives at Tesla’s shoreline headquarters near Davis.

  Sky wasn’t there that day, but Brandon’s train had been caught in the blast.

  During his funeral, Sky had called from the vault. Don’t worry, sis, she said as they sealed the entrance. Always the braver, smarter, better twin. I know you worry—and don’t. I’ll be safer than you are on the surface.

  Char had quit the university and found work online for corporate lawyers, vetting the science parts of their legal briefs. She bought produce at the farmers market. Grew sprouts in vials in her kitchen. Took the zephyr to Tahoe to see clean water and pretend things weren’t so bad. Something about Geraldo and Reynaldo shattered her illusions.

  Reynaldo licked his fingers and shrugged his shoulders. “Sanguibahd is also sanctuary from raptors.”

  “Raptors? But that’s just a rumor!”

  Jake shook his head and Reynaldo chuckled.

  Geraldo said, “If you don’t see it on the television, it must not be real?”

  Char was beginning to feel hopelessly naïve.

  Mike’s com sounded in his ear, so loud she could hear it. His self-important vibe put a stop to the group’s conversation. While he listened, his face lost its color.

  “This is something I have to deal with.” He stood up. “Reynaldo, Geraldo, you need to go back down. Keep away from the Pacific Zone. In fact, stay completely south of the equator.”

  So her guess had been right. IHS was going to quarantine the Pacific Zone.

  “Char, I’ll contact you after I take care of this. We’ll go see the hydroponics annex.” He left through a side door followed by a security detail that must have been watching them the whole time.

  The station had gone into nightside over an unlighted, uninhabited stretch, but now the dark blank below gave way to a jewel-like phantasm of light. Char had no idea which city they were over or if they were north or south of the equator. This was an entirely new way of being alive in the universe. Night and day changed every ninety minutes.

  The light reached up into the Blue Marble’s nooks and crannies. With Mike and the Blood City boys gone, the open groping in the bar was harder to ignore. Jake didn’t seem to care for it; he was playing with the origami from his empty drink.

  “You said you like this place?”

  “No. I said it was interesting.” He displayed the paper figure on his flat palm. “I do like the dragons.”

  Until today, she hadn’t been with anyone since Brandon. The sex with Jake Ardri had been a one-time thing. That’s what she’d told herself. She never expected to see him again. Now she found herself thinking about how good he had made her feel.

  Jake handed her the origami dragon and stood up. “Let’s get out of here.”

  In truth, she was very glad to see him again.

  Objects in Space

  Below the window to infinite space, Jake was spread like a feast on Char’s bed. Maybe the erotic activity in the Blue Marble had stirred her up. Maybe all the talk about fertility. But evidently her long self-imposed celibacy had come to its end.

  Or maybe Jake alone had brought her out of it. Sitting between his legs, she ran her hands over his thighs and leaned forward to kiss the skin below his navel. He fondled her breasts, and she reached up to his shoulders, stretching alongside him like a cat. She inched up to nuzzle his neck and pressed her naked skin against his.

  She slipped under him and pulled him over. His warm strength poured into her, filling her with a sense of well-being. He was melancholy and grateful—or she read her own bittersweet pleasure in his sad groans. She pulled him in, arched her pelvis, and urged him to the deepest place he could find.

  When they were exhausted and satisfied, Char lay quiet on Jake’s chest. She listened to the strong bu-bump of his heartbeat and the air moving through his lungs. He needed a shave. One of her favorite things about a man, that stubble at the end of his day.

  He was easy to be with. He didn’t want anything from her. Not like Mike—not that she had feelings for Mike. Cripes.

  She liked Jake’s independence. Sex usually complicated things with men. Either they
couldn’t wait to get away from you afterwards, or they wanted to keep you in a pumpkin shell. Jake promised neither.

  “I have a confession to make.” He kissed her forehead. “In the Junque on the way up, I did want to go for your precious parts.”

  “I knew it.”

  They took a shower together. “Twice in one day,” she said. “My life is suddenly the picture of luxury.”

  “Oh, you mean the shower? I thought that smug look was on my account.”

  “Well, it has been a while since I’ve been with a man.”

  “Um, not that long.”

  “Oh, that didn’t count.” She blushed at the reference. “That was chaos sex.”

  “And this was on purpose?” He looked hopeful. How sweet.

  “Definitely.” She kissed him and stepped out of the shower.

  She headed for the closet but changed her mind and put on the same outfit. Silly, but she wouldn’t want Mike to notice that she had changed clothes.

  Then she noticed her other flight pants out the corner of her eye, the ones she wore on the ride up. She uttered a little cry and snatched them off the floor. Trembling, she unzipped the pockets until she found it.

  “Char?” Jake was at the bathroom door, his stubble half gone and her razor in his hand.

  “My necklace.” How could she have forgotten? It was like forgetting Sky. She wrapped the black satin cord around her neck and kissed the silver half heart. “My sister wore the other half.”

  “Sisters are good.” He popped into the bathroom and back out again with a clean face. “I love all my sisters. Well, that’s not true.”

  The Emperor had a hundred concubines. An exaggeration, but Jake surely had more sisters than he knew about. Char had only the one, living or not.

  Watching Jake dress, she remembered something from the Blue Marble. “Jake, tell me about the raptors.”

  “It’s true.” He pulled on his boots. “I’ve seen eagles and peregrines myself. Rani saw ospreys, and I’ve heard about vultures.”

  “How is it…”

  “Possible? How is any of this possible? It’s all part of the big contamination, I guess. Every species is vulnerable to mutation. The bees dying off. Hairless humans with metallic eyes. Birds transformed into giant monsters.”