by Tanya Huff
“Ship. Tether. Boat. Train.” Werst growled the list just loudly enough to be heard, softly enough to be ignored.
Torin smiled, keeping her teeth mostly covered. “We came to shop.”
The facilitator blinked. “Shop?”
“We were told about your commerce sectors, thought we’d check one out. Is there a problem?”
“No . . .” Zi visibly shook off zir confusion. Her response had clearly been unexpected, but zi was just as clearly determined to stay on script. “No,” zi repeated, leaning forward slightly, ears flattening. “And we don’t want problems.”
Zi had a little power over zir lower-ranked companions, a little more over shoplifters, drunks, and vandals and none at all over her. Torin swept an assessing gaze over the three of them, frowned slightly at a sloppy twist in the tallest facilitator’s harness that had tri-colored hair stuck up in tufts around it, finally met the shortest’s gaze, and, after a moment said, “Good.”
“Good?” Zi sounded unsure.
“We don’t want problems either.” Torin pitched her voice to support a corporal under her command.
Zi nodded, posture relaxing. “Good,” zi repeated. “Have a pleasant evening, Visitors.”
Torin returned the nod, zi barked an order—which caused one of zir companion’s ears to lift—and the three of them strutted away. Given the way their legs bent, she gave the strut the benefit of the doubt.
“You need to promise me you’ll only use your powers for good,” Craig said softly at her right side.
“Police forces are hierarchical.” Torin watched zi reach over to tug at the twisted strap, chewing out the other facilitator in a low rhythmic burr. “If the military teaches you one thing, it’s how to spot your place in the hierarchy.”
Craig made a noise that might’ve been disbelief, might’ve been derision. “That’s the one thing?”
“We don’t give them live rounds until we’re sure they’ll only shoot what we tell them to shoot,” Torin answered absently. The crowds streaming past on their way to the train, anxious to get home at the end of shift, had been ignoring them. Unfortunately, that had changed the moment they’d been stopped by the facilitators, and now she’d bet that a high fraction of the noise surrounding them concerned them. She could feel the weight of multiple gazes. “This is a stupid place to sell a biscuit warmer.”
They rented a large room above the bar closest to the station. The room was clean, reasonably priced, and the only one in the establishment designed for the taller members of the Confederation. Unfortunately, the room and contents had been constructed entirely of molded plastic.
“That’s one fuk of a lot of potential hyper-intelligent, polynumerous molecular polyhydroxide alcoholydes,” Torin muttered from the threshold. It was one thing to refuse to allow the little plastic bastards to dictate any more of her life and another thing entirely to walk into the belly of the beast.
“Your call, Gunny.” Werst stood a little too close behind her, but she couldn’t tell if that was due to her shit or his own. He’d been on Big Yellow and in the prison. Out of her personal triumvirate, he’d only missed having a conversation about context with Major Svenson’s arm.
“We’re out of here.”
They rented a second, more expensive room a half block away, the visible plastic unobtrusive enough to ignore. The room had clearly been designed for Rakva—so had the other, Torin realized, forcing herself to look past the memory of the plastic—but they could all work around that.
“Why not get the information we need and sleep on the train on the way back to the tether?” Werst demanded.
“Because then it’ll look like we were here to get information,” Alamber sighed from the larger of the two nests. “No tourist would come this far and not stay the night. You guys really suck at directing attention. And if I’m using suck in a derogatory way . . .” A rude gesture completed the observation.
“Don’t you mean redirect?” Craig asked, opaquing the windows.
“Yeah, no. In order to redirect, you have to direct, and I was serious about the really sucking.”
By the time they emerged back onto the street, it was full dark. Under low, yellow-white lights, the buying and selling went on. Waiting for her vision to acclimatize, Torin paused on the bottom of the three broad steps leading into the inn.
“Commerce,” Alamber said, sounding satisfied, “never closes.”
“You learn that from Big Bill, too?” Binti asked.
“Well, yeah . . .” They were behind her, but Torin could hear the shrug in the di’Taykan’s voice. “. . . but I also read it in one of the brochures I picked up on the tether. Commerce never closes! It’s a thing.”
The crowds had cleared from around the carts, leaving only a few people hunched over mugs or bowls or meat on sticks. The scent of grain toasted with peppers suggested that at least one of the carts sold Rakva arliy and she could hear Katrien in the distance, but the only race Torin could see were Trun.
“My kada says there wasn’t no reason for there to be a war. My kada says your kind can’t stop fighting. My kada says you fight like nunnurs in spring.”
Your kind.
Torin shifted her shoulders, a year later still checking for the weight of her KC.
“Torin.” Beside her, Craig’s voice held a familiar mix of impatience and affection. When she turned toward him, he smiled. “They’re not the enemy.”
“I know.” Everyone she could see moved like a civilian, only marginally aware of their surroundings. If they’d seen anything of the war, it had been on vid screens. The Trun throwing zir cup into the recycler had watched news clips of battles happening far away and had never been told those battles were happening far away in order to prevent battles from happening up close and personal. The pair of Trun arguing as they ate had never dropped dirtside through heavy fire, looking faintly bored while metal shrieked and the VTA bucked and pitched because every eye was on zir. The Trun buzzing by on . . . actually Torin had no idea what the fuk zi was riding. A metal rectangle about twenty centimeters by ten, maybe six centimeters thick with a meter-high control stick extending from one narrow end, provided barely enough space for the Trun to stand sideways. It moved quickly, about three centimeters off the ground, and it didn’t look like it had wheels. Tail extended for balance, one hand on the stick, the other holding a bag of vegetables, zi sped nonchalantly around carts and people and disappeared into the night.
“I want one,” Ressk announced.
“Looks like fun,” Alamber agreed.
“You okay?” Binti asked over the discussion, quickly growing heated, that Alamber was too tall for the vehicle.
Torin stepped aside as Craig moved past to throw a pilot’s perspective into the argument. “I’m fine.”
“It’s just that you’d shifted into kickass posture.”
Kickass posture? “I didn’t . . .”
When Binti’s brows rose, Torin shook her head. “I’m fine,” she repeated, forcing herself to relax. They were attracting a certain amount of attention; a couple of people stared openly, most glanced over and away, and over and away, radiating a studied nonchalance that said, Yeah, so what, Younger Races. Why should I care? She didn’t see any slates up, although she assumed that unless the Trun were significantly different than every other sentient species in known space, pictures had been taken. Curiosity was what had dragged sentience out of the muck, after all. And Marines had their pictures taken all the time. They weren’t covert . . . hadn’t been covert. “Though I could be thinking too much,” she admitted after a moment.
“Yeah, well, fuk Colonel Hurrs, right?” Binti’s smile twisted. “I never thought about it in terms of us and them until that bastard brought it up.”
“I’m not sure if I should be glad it’s not just me,” Torin muttered.
Binti’s smile twisted further. “M
e either.”
“Lengthen the stick?” Craig raised both hands in a plea to the divine. “How the hell can you suggest lengthening the stick when you don’t know what the stick does?”
“I know what my stick does when you lengthen it,” Alamber muttered.
“All right, people.” Werst’s mouth closed with a snap of teeth and Torin knew with a comforting certainty, he’d been about to say, “We all know what your stick does when you lengthen it.”
“Come on.” She stepped down onto the street. “Let’s eat.”
A good portion of the local food shorted all three species of necessary amino acids, although, for a change, the Humans would be in the best shape should they run out of supplements.
“We eating singly or collectively, Gunny?”
“Let’s stay together for now.”
The Krai led the way to one of the larger stalls with counter seating. The stools were not only low but made for multiple users—three, maybe four Trun curled up together.
Binti took one look at them and snorted. “I’m sharing with the skinny ass,” she declared, pulling Alamber down beside her.
Torin and Craig arranged themselves into a semifunctional position, and the four of them settled in to watch Werst and Ressk do what the Krai did.
The cook had clearly heard the stories that the Krai could and would eat anything organic—the Krai had fully committed to omnivores having better odds of achieving sentience—and, like every cook in known space, this Trun had to take up the challenge. The Krai always won.
Back on Big Yellow, Werst had eaten a piece of fake fruit. Which, as it happened, meant he’d eaten a piece of Big Yellow. Given that Big Yellow had been an organic plastic construct, that meant he’d eaten a piece of sentient, polynumerous molecular polyhydroxide alcoholyde with no ill effect.
Krai digestion was Torin’s ace up the sleeve should the little gray fukkers return.
On the other side of the open kitchen, three Trun sharing a stool lifted bowls to their mouths and watched them over the edges.
The meat on a stick laid the unmistakable film that came from vat-grown food on Torin’s hard palate. Fortunately the vegetable mash tasted like it had been grown in actual dirt. She cleaned her bowl with one of the shallow wooden spoons, half her attention on Werst eating a pale green gelatinous mass with every indication of enjoyment.
“What the hell was that?” Craig muttered, leaning past her to watch the last wobbly bit disappear.
“Don’t know.” She passed him her second stick of meat; he preferred vat over live. “Don’t need nor want to know.”
When Ressk ate a spoon, Torin put a stop to the challenges before the Trun connected the dots. It was all fun and games until someone in the crowd realized they could be next on the menu.
“If I was in charge,” the cook grinned as Werst touched his slate to the counter, “I’d comp you both, kir survilav.”
::Kir survilav: dialect, Hurlarnir Islands. Little furless ones,:: Torin’s jaw implant translated. Although Justice had provided the entire team with implants, only Torin and Alamber had more than basic communications. The Corps upgraded gunnery sergeants to the top of the line and the degenerate who’d called herself Alamber’s vantru had his jaw cracked the moment she could find a tech who’d take her money, everyone involved ignoring the high possibility of bone deformities as his jaw continued to grow. Not long before the shit hit the fan on Vrijheid, Alamber had that first unit replaced with the best tech pirates could steal. When he’d matter-of-factly explained how he’d paid for it, Torin had beat the crap out of a punching plate. Craig’s old implant, described as “like a can on a string” by Justice techs, had been replaced while the other three had their units installed.
“I think he likes you,” Alamber purred as they moved away from the stall.
Werst belched.
“At least he likes your little furless ones; right, Boss?”
“Leave me out of this,” Torin told him, indicating they should huddle up. With any luck, they’d appear to be a group of friends deciding to part ways for the evening. “Back at the room by local 01:30, unless you’ve cleared your absence in advance,” she added as Alamber opened his mouth. It seemed unlikely, but if there were di’Taykan in Sector Eighteen, Alamber would find them. “Share intell as you get it—if we can ask about specifics, it can only help, but there’s no need for regular contact.”
Ressk looked up from his slate, nostril ridges half closed. “Socially evolved beyond warfare doesn’t mean evolved beyond individual stupidity. One of the Trun sitting across from us had notched ears and a patch of fur missing from zir tail.”
“The big orange one.” Werst nodded, shifting his weight back and forth, toes spread against the pavement. “And all three had a pattern clipped into the fur of their forearms.” Arboreal, the Krai had excellent vision in flickering light. “Could be a gang sign. Could be a symbol of their connection to their divine. Could be they go to the same crappy barber. If we see them again, we’ll ask.”
Tough guys—if they were tough guys—had to keep proving they were tough. Although, Torin acknowledged, they made good Marines if they could overcome that basic insecurity. “If they try something stupid, we don’t engage. If they force the issue, minimum effective response.” She swept a gaze around the team. “Mission objective is the identity of that supply ship. Maintain a low profile.”
“A low profile?” Binti shook her head. “Gunny, they’re watching us like they expect us to start shooting any minute.”
Looking beyond Binti’s shoulder, Torin could see the group around the food stall arguing with the cook. Beyond that, a facilitator stared across the promenade at them from the steps of their inn. When zi realized Torin had spotted zir, zir tail began to lash and zi raised two fingers to zir eyes, making a gesture universal among biocular species.
“No one actually likes tourists,” Alamber pointed out. He tucked his hand in the crook of Binti’s arm. “Come on, let’s go buy crap, ask naive questions, and I’ll show you how to have a good time in a strange place.”
“His good time’s been in some pretty fukking strange places,” Werst muttered as they walked away.
“Binti can handle him. Shut up,” Ressk added before Werst could comment. “Alamber has been a bad influence on you.” He snapped his slate back onto his belt. “Let’s go play quartermaster.”
Werst waited for Torin’s nod before falling into step beside his bonded. “You sure you know where we’re going?”
“We follow the tracks to the warehouse district. I thought you were Recon . . .”
“And then there were two.” Craig held out his hand. “Come on, let’s go stop a war with a biscuit warmer.”
The directions to Bufush’s shop, while available, wouldn’t download onto either slate.
“You think it’s because we’re bouncing off the ship and not fully integrated into their system?” Torin tapped the screen a few more times, unable to stop herself, knowing full well repetition wouldn’t solve the problem.
“Could be. But if I had to guess, I’d say they prefer we do this the hard way.” Craig pulled the slate out of her hand. “They want tourists to wander, get a little lost, spend more.”
“On what?” The expression he turned on her was so incredulous she had to smile. “Okay, granted, there’s a million things to buy, but I don’t recognize half of them.” The directions they’d managed to decode from the scramble had taken them to a narrow road of small, open-fronted shops under what were probably two or three stories of living quarters. Most of the shops sold a variation on a theme—harnesses, jewelry, small electronics, items that might’ve been toys or sex aids, Torin honestly didn’t know.
It looked a lot like the concourses on the stations or the markets back home on Paradise, but . . .
The heavy bass drone under every piece of music was setting
her teeth on edge. There was no smell of di’Taykan spices. No Krai ropework. Fabric, but almost no clothes.
“Do you ever wonder if our lack of fur is what kept the Younger Races so aggressive?” she asked glancing at a bin of unfamiliar fruit.
“I hadn’t.” Craig pulled her to a halt as the street split around an enormous tree that smelled faintly of dill. “We need to ask for directions.”
Torin smiled at a Trun who scowled suspiciously and stepped back into zir shop. “Yeah, that’ll go well.”
“Shopkeepers’ll be more friendly if we hand over the lolly.”
“You want us to buy their tolerance?”
He shrugged. “You’d rather wander randomly?”
Now they were standing still, the number of Trun watching them had grown. The four who’d been following them from the far end of the street had gathered another two and all six were standing, tails lashing, exuding a combination of warning and fear.
Torin had been feared before. Just not generally while she was shopping.
“All right,” she sighed. “Let’s try it.”
Three of the six scattered as she headed directly for them. The other three held their ground, radiating you’ll have to go through us. Torin stepped around them to a display of iridescent scarves that reminded her a little of the saris an old girlfriend had worn. Every possible color combination, the scarves were decorative rather than insulating unless the metallic threads flickering in and out of sight as the translucent fabric rippled in the warm breeze indicated built-in tech.
“You have to pay for that.” The young shopkeeper glared up at her, the row of tiny pink rings in zir ears quivering, a double loop of gauzy pink around her neck. “You can’t just take it.”
Torin pulled another scarf off the rack. “I know.”
“You know? Sure you do.”
“We need . . .”
Craig cut her off, leaning around her and lifting the spill of blue fabric off out of her hand. “We need your opinion. Blue for her?”
“Seriously?” The tiny pink rings flicked forward and back. “Blue for you. Blue’d make her look all gray and bleh. She should wear the brown and orange.” Zi reached for the green scarf Torin still held, realized what zi’d done and froze, eyes wide, zir expression a clear don’t hurt me.