by Blaze Ward
Now she was studying a small lizard–looking creature on a wall. Maybe the philosophical offspring of a gecko and a chameleon. It blended well, but moved quickly and gracefully. And couldn’t have been more than six centimeters long.
She watched it munch happily on the local equivalent of a spider that hadn’t heard him coming either. There was probably a moral to that story.
Suvi launched another aggressive series of pings, but nothing moved.
She flitted over to a crate and scanned the weathered coding on the side. The language of shipping containers was probably the first universal stellar language. You could write and speak in any number of tongues and get by, but you had to talk to a very limited intelligence computer to move big things around.
That meant simple codes, with descriptive tags built in, so that someone could point a laser scanner at a stack of containers, scan the whole wall, and inventory everything in seconds. Here, she was stuck thinking at almost human speeds, so it took much longer, and the flitter–ship had a very limited scanning laser, so she had to get close.
But it was fun.
This one contained quality glasswork, cups and vases and such, designed to be sold boutique–style on a frontier colony with some money. The sort of place that had been too poor to take anything initially that wasn’t directly related to immediate survival. And had then survived the first few years in the wilderness, and prospered enough that people were ready to have nice things. Suvi added it to the list.
There weren’t any great prizes here. No precious metal alloys, or objects d’art, or high–end machine parts that Javier could use to build her a new ship. And this freighter was never flying again without more time in a space–dock than was worth considering. From what she had overheard, the others were mostly interested in ripping out the reactors and engines anyway.
Then she remembered the Black Flag. Being stuck thinking at only human speeds really sucked. These people were the pirates who had jumped them. Javier was a prisoner, of sorts, and that’s why they thought she was dead.
Duh.
Gods, she hated slow processing hardware.
Well, that changed everything. If Javier was working with them, he had some sort of deal going, and she was his ace in the hole. She could do that.
Now she really missed all the extra brain horsepower. It would be nice to be able to read these people at the unconscious level, with all sorts of extra scanners and thermometers so she had a solid hold on their biometrics. Hmmm. She’d have to settle for turning up the audio channels and putting in a cutout in case it got loud suddenly.
Time to watch, and wait, and prepare. Javier was going to need her.
Ξ
Javier smiled but grumbled. Having an honest deal with a bunch of pirates was one thing, but it would have been nice if this wreck had had some sort of big score. If he had to work with Sykora for four years, one of them would end up messily dead. No doubt about that.
He was under no illusion that he’d have any chance to escape or communicate with anybody, any time they got close to civilization. Even with a lot of planning. Ogre Lady would just lock him in a broom closet for a day if she had to.
And the old man was going to be no help at all. He seemed lost in a fugue of some sort. Probably spent too long alone here and gone totally nuts. He certainly didn’t realize he mumbled, not that anything coherent came out.
And Sykora…Yeah. Don’t let her too close behind you. Simple as that. At least he had Suvi watching his back. Not that she could do much, but she was going to make his work a whole lot easier while he was here. And she could keep his back safer.
Javier watched as another box came up on the screen, inventoried, mapped, and tagged. If nothing else, at least they had something to show for all the effort.
He was going to be too busy just staying alive. Being Science Officer could wait.
Ξ
Djamila was torn. The freighter was completely indefensible from even the most rudimentary approach. She had already passed seven places where she would have secured a door, prepared an ambush point, or built a trap. This person, this local with the hard eyes, was a complete amateur. On the other hand, it would make things easier if she found it necessary to arrange accidents for several people down here.
At least one of them deserved it. She was even trying to be nice. Aritza just pushed her buttons. She hadn’t even pushed back. Yet.
At least the trip was a success. Based on the manifests alone, if even a third of the cargo survived, they could sell it for a profit, over and above getting a new power reactor. The Captain would be pleased.
She watched Aritza and the local confer on something. It involved a lot of pointing on Aritza’s part, and shrugs in response. Much as she hated to admit it, the punk had an easy way with people. Much like the Captain did. She had never gotten the hang of it, and, until now, never really appreciated how useful a tool it could be in her inventory.
Huh. Perhaps the old bitch dog needed to learn a new trick or two. It galled her to think Aritza had something useful to teach her. But there it was.
All right. Observe. Understand. Learn.
No different than taking a fortified position away from bad guys. Figure out their weak point. Come at them sidelong. Get the mission done before they can respond. Tactical 101.
Djamila walked up on the conversation at a measured pace. Quiet. Dignified. Prepared. Open.
Aritza had apparently developed a sixth sense regarding her. He seemed to place her physically at all times, even when he wasn’t looking. She felt a moment of thrill course through her for no good reason. No, there was a reason. For all his nonchalance, he was acutely aware of her, even subconsciously, and paying extra special attention.
Good. That meant she had gotten through to him, at least at some level.
Ξ
Javier registered Sykora before he realized she was that close behind him. Nobody that big should be allowed to move that quietly.
And yet, his favorite tree had sprung up behind him, listening to things without interrupting. It must have galled the control–freak in her to sit passively. Good. Do her good to be in a situation where she wasn’t completely in control. Maybe she’d learn to be human occasionally.
He glanced back once. Well, up and back. Seriously, unless she was this close, he forgot just how big she was. Perfectly proportioned woman, just a whole head taller than him. Dancing with her would be fun. Distracting, but fun.
And she didn’t say anything. Just hovered in that perfectly poised way she moved. Like she was expecting bad guys to come out of the air vents at any moment, or something. It would involve guns. She did guns well.
But she didn’t say anything. Just watched him like a hawk. Weird. Most women nattered. Not her. Didn’t even fidget. Might have been carved in white marble. Artemis, by Michelangelo. Huh.
Javier went right ahead with his own nattering. Lemuel seemed a good enough guy. Little lonely. Hard time remembering words. Seventeen years of solo survival on a hostile planet would do that. He himself usually needed a few days in a bar before people made sense again, once he got back from one of his long runs in the darkness.
The cargo was in good enough shape, as the hull had largely held, except where it had cracked on the frames, but that let weather in between spaces instead of into them. Javier figured they would make a clearing and drop the shuttle into it, next trip, so they could pull the reactor and haul it the shortest distance. Maybe the engines were salvageable as well. Hadn’t made it that far. And the corvette didn’t need them, but there was enough space on the flight deck for another small ship, a gunboat, or a scout.
If he was going to be stuck with these yahoos for a while, he might as well make it as profitable as possible. Buy his freedom, make his escape, whatever.
It would involve these people getting what they deserved. He was sure of that.
Ξ
Lemuel fought to keep his face and mannerisms passive when the eureka moment str
uck him. For better than an hour, he had explained long forgotten things to the strangers. Well, to Javier. The rest had just trailed along quietly, not touching much, but paying way too much attention to everything around them except him.
By now, he was pretty sure they were pirates. But Javier wasn’t one of them. Just along for the ride, somehow. Perhaps a prisoner, based on one of his off–hand comments.
Lemuel considered that The Lord might have finally decided he had been tempered enough by the wilderness. Perhaps it was time to take his message to the broader universe. Lemuel had never considered himself a prophet. But it was apparently time.
The Harlot would be the biggest problem. The Lord had put her there as his final challenge before he could bring enlightenment to the galaxy. Well enough. He would overcome her.
She would not be an easy foe. But The Lord had never intended his to be an easy life. And Javier would only be able to help a little. Less, if he was a prisoner and needed to be kept ignorant.
But The Lord would provide.
He continued to answer questions from Javier, even as a supernova exploded in his brain. He could do this. And make it look like a terrible accident.
The Harlot would be first, as she deserved, followed by the three other harlots. And the rest of the Harlot’s followers. Only Javier would escape. For now. Perhaps he would have to be sacrificed for the greater good later. The Lord would make His will known when the time was right.
Part Five
Suvi flitter–shipped up and over the wreck. After two hours down in the bowels of the dead freighter, she needed a breath of fresh air and some open skies. Even if she was an AI.
Below, Javier seemed happy, overall. Somewhere, recently, a secondary power reactor had made him extremely angry. She could tell by the way his voice grated when it came up. The wreck was going to make it all better, somehow.
Tall Lady, the one called Sykora, appeared pleased as well, so maybe they knew a place they could sell the cargo.
The survivor, Lemuel, was harder to read. She had studied his face. It went from happy to angry and back quickly, but most of the time it was placid. Suvi’d be happy to get her poker–playing sub–routines back on line, so she could understand better all the subtle byplay going on. She wasn’t close enough to human to just read them and understand what wasn’t being said.
For now, she scanned the few lizard–birds in the neighborhood. Nothing larger than a house cat was within a kilometer of the shipwreck. Somewhere, over behind that hill, somebody named Del was listening to weird music in the background, when Sykora checked in every fifteen minutes. And he was very bored.
Suvi checked her power levels. Enough flight for several hours. More if she kept the scanning to a minimum and sat on a flat rock somewhere, absorbing sunlight. She found a nice spot above the bow of the broken freighter and settled.
The sun felt good on her back. She dialed up the audio sensors to their highest gain and sunbathed while she waited for Javier to call.
Ξ
Lemuel was on firmer ground now. The strangers had completed their tour of the ship and were making plans to salvage everything so they could haul it back to civilization, including him. The Lord was finally calling him to service.
They sat in the clearing below his crude cabin and broke out pre–fabricated meal packets for themselves. Javier had offered him one, and shown him how to activate the heating element. The smell was nearly overwhelming, as he had not had any meat to eat in many, many years.
None of the animals on this planet could be safely consumed. Even most of the plants were harmful.
Thus had The Lord make his displeasure with Mohr known.
There was a plant Lemuel had found safe, at least for him. Over the years, he had developed something of an resistance to the trace alkaloids in the leaves, if he boiled them long enough into a tea. His dreams were deep and bizarre afterwards, but he was mostly immune now.
Thus had The Lord delivered into his hands the tools of His vengeance on The Harlot.
Lemuel concentrated on his tea kettle, hanging over the fire on salvaged iron bars. As long as the water was boiled hard and rolled, everything dangerous in it was likely killed. He felt Javier’s gaze.
“So, Lemuel,” Javier asked him, “are the local plants and animals edible?”
Lemuel scowled, mostly to himself. “There are a few safe plants,” he said, skirting the trust carefully in his service to The Lord. “The animals are too dangerous to eat. We did not have the tools to understand that when we crashed. Mohr died of the poison. Thomas was killed by a fever.”
Javier processed all that carefully. “And Anya, the pilot?”
Lemuel shrugged, skating carefully around the truth. “Her death is why we crashed here,” he said, obliquely. “None but her could fly the ship, and the computer was not up to the task.”
Lemuel left off the bashed in skull that had caused Anya’s death. They would not understand that she was a Harlot that had deserved death, like so many others that exercised power over me in defiance of The Lord’s Will.
The whistling steam precluded conversation for a moment. Lemuel felt many eyes upon him. He realized, belatedly, that the simple act of boiling water in an iron pot might be something none but him had ever seen or done. Javier seemed to understand, but he wasn’t of them.
Lemuel concentrated on turning the simple ritual of tea into a performance.
Let the water boil for several long moments for safety. The local animals had a tendency to flee at the sound. The humans just watched him, rapt.
Pull the kettle from the hanging iron with a cozy he had knitted the third winter, when he began to make his own cloth from cotton he grew and harvested. Rest it on the warm flat rock placed there for just this reason.
Put his largest soup pot next to the kettle on the rock.
Pour a bit of boiled water in and swirl it around to clean and sterilize things.
Pour the cleaning water over the composting pile to keep things damp for the digesting bacteria.
Add several measures of the dried leaves he called Dream Tea to the soup pot and pour most of the hot water over it. Retain some of the boiled water to clean the pot later, after reheating.
Stir vigorously for a few seconds to unsettle everything.
And then several minutes of patience as the tea steeped. For Lemuel, a ritual nearly as important as thrice–daily prayer. Cleanliness was next to godliness, especially in this place where so many poisonous things waited to trip the unwary.
Around him, the unwary awaited their fate blindly.
The Lord would welcome them.
Ξ
Javier bit back a laugh. For people raised on food–dispenser computers, tea–making probably looked a lot like magic. He would know. He had done it enough times, usually for station commanders and admirals.
And Lemuel seemed to have something of the showman in him, after all. Javier watched him rise to the occasion of good performance art.
The tea smelled good, too. Earthy and rich in a way that chemically–processed stuff never had. Javier bit back a moment of frustration and rage at the fate of Mielikki. At least he had saved all the botany. And hopefully Yu was keeping the chickens as happy as they ever got.
All in all, things could have been much worse.
Ξ
Lemuel found that The Lord had granted his prayers for calmness and patience today.
The tea reached a point of inflection, like a magical infusion of happiness and psychedelic nocturne.
He ladled himself a small cup and tasted it. Perfect. Light enough that he would be happy all day, but not enough to overwhelm him with the sort of sleepiness that had visited him in the early days, before he had developed much immunity.
Lemuel refilled his cup and set it to one side.
He looked up at the surrounding group and smiled. The Lord had indeed provided.
Lemuel gestured with the pot. “My friends, I would like to share with you something of t
his world that I will soon be departing. It has brought me much joy and calmness over the years. I think you will enjoy it as well.”
The others smiled up at him. Even the Harlot relaxed her eternal vigilance and hostility. Lemuel considered that the greatest sign yet. “Please join me in a toast.”
Javier held out a mug that Lemuel filled. Lemuel watched him take the smallest taste with a knowing twinkle in his eye.
Truly, Lemuel had found his ally against the Harlot. They would join forces and kill all the pirates, and then go forth and wreak a terrible vengeance on the universe together.
He smiled as he carried the pot around to each of the invaders and shared with them their own taste of The Lord’s wrath.
Ξ
Something about the whole situation just felt off. Javier couldn’t put his finger on it, but Lemuel just felt wrong. All too pleased with himself. Not nearly uptight enough for so many strangers around, or the impending upset to his life. Even rescue didn’t explain it.
Javier took just enough of the tea to get a taste, while pretending to take a reasonable drink. He knew better than to try anything on a strange planet.
Yup. Something there. A trace of…what? Most of the pirates might have tried various narcotics over the years, licit and otherwise, but probably none of them had made a scientific event of it. Certainly one that certain Shore Patrols still talked about, years later.
Their lives rarely depended on that sort of thing.
His did.
So. Accidental drug overdose, or deliberate? The man’s behavior just didn’t ring right. Probably not an accident, then. Still, this felt more like a narcotic than a poison.
He should probably do something about it. At least it wasn’t that toxic, if this Lemuel–dude was willing to drink it. Slow acting at least, probably not lethal.
It would be impolite to tell the dragon–lady if he was wrong. She’d just shoot the guy out of hand and be done with it. Maybe he didn’t deserve that. Maybe he did. You never knew.
Fortunately, Javier was prepared for this sort of thing. These people had no clue what to do on the surface of a hostile world. Obviously, they needed a Science Officer to keep them alive.