Steel Beneath the Skin

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘Could you come down to my cabin?’

  ‘Another threesome?’

  Ella giggled. ‘Sex isn’t the answer to everything.’ Aneka rolled her eyes. ‘I need your talents.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll be right over.’

  ‘Her talents?’ Aneka asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ Ella replied, ‘she’s a wizard with a vibrator.’ Aneka swatted her on the arm.

  Patton appeared through the door wearing a tabard-like robe in a light, silky material a few seconds later and padded across to sit down on one of the benches opposite the bunks.

  ‘Drake’ll kill you if he sees you out of your cabin in that,’ Ella commented.

  ‘He’s busy in the cockpit, and he’s expecting to find me naked and hungry when he comes down. He’ll forgive me about two minutes after I’ve wrapped my lips around his cock. What did you want?’

  Ella rolled off the bed and sat down beside Patton, her eyes on Aneka. ‘Aneka thinks she’s a freak.’

  The green-eyed blonde looked at Aneka for a second or two. ‘I started hearing people’s thoughts when I was seven. Didn’t understand what was happening at first. I’d answer questions I hadn’t been asked, that kind of thing. When I hit puberty it really ramped up and I couldn’t stop hearing them, even if I tried.’

  ‘It must be… weird.’

  ‘If I concentrate on one person it’s not so bad, but it is a little weird, yes. I hear what someone’s saying in my head just before the sound comes out, and sometimes it’s horribly embarrassing. The real problem is that I can’t block it out entirely even when I’m not trying. If I’m near anyone that thinks then I can hear it, like a noise in my head. It’s distracting and, um, I’m mildly addicted to painkillers from the headaches. It’s the reason I have my own cabin out away from all the others. It gives me a chance to have silence every so often.’ She paused and then said, ‘So, basically, welcome to Club Freak.’

  Ella gave out a squeak. ‘Hey, I brought you here to help her.’

  ‘I am. Look, as soon as someone knows what I am they start acting like I’m snooping on their thoughts all the time. I don’t, I wouldn’t. For fuck’s sake why would I even want to know what most people are thinking?! People have thrown fits over your eyes. Monkey and I were stupid about Aneka until we got to know her.’ She stared hard at Aneka. ‘That’s the point. That’s the point I had to learn and, actually, it took my talking a friend out of suicide to make me realise that I may be a freak, but I’ve got talents that make me a useful member of society. So do you. You saved four people’s lives, Aneka. Doesn’t that mean anything? To the people who matter, on this ship and outside it, it will mean something.’

  Aneka nodded. ‘Rationally, you’re right, but I’ve faced prejudice before and I didn’t like it then.’

  ‘When?’ Ella asked.

  ‘Having tits in the Army didn’t make life easy. Either they see the breasts and forget the rest, or they assume you’re too weak to do the job. I had to work twice as hard to be thought half as good. I went into freelance work because people there were more inclined to worry about what I could do than about whether I would be a distraction to the men.’

  ‘So you’ve faced this kind of thing before and you got past it,’ Patton said. ‘You’re not supposed to like it. It’s not likeable. It’s stupid and deplorable, but people are what they are. You said it yourself, you had to try harder to make people think you could do your job, but you’re clearly capable of it. This time around you have to make people like you even though they may not like what you are. Well, you’re beautiful, sexy, charismatic, I bet you know how to act to make people want you. In our society, that’ll get you a long way.’

  ‘Huh,’ Aneka grunted. ‘Can’t I just feel sorry for myself for a couple more days?’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned, sure,’ Patton replied, ‘but if it’s interfering with Ella’s sex life I doubt she’ll let you.’

  5.11.523 FSC.

  ‘Jansen to the bridge,’ Patton’s voice sounded over the ship’s intercom speakers. Aneka looked up at the ceiling with a frown and then reached down to pull on her suit.

  ‘I’m coming,’ Ella said, bouncing up and reaching for her own suit.

  ‘You smell like a Turkish brothel.’

  Ella just giggled. ‘One of the nice things about a ship-suit is that it tends to keep that kind of thing under wraps. Besides, they won’t care.’

  Aneka shrugged and closed the seal on her leotard. ‘I’m not the one that’s going to have various fluids running down her thighs. Why are you coming anyway?’

  ‘Because we’re probably moving into orbit around Harriamon Three and I want to see it too.’

  Aneka grunted. ‘Civilisation.’ She watched Ella seal her suit and then started for the door.

  ‘Yeah, you said that before, but Harriamon’s a Rim world. It’s about as far from civilisation as you can get and still be in the Federation.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Still, we’ll need to get Al configured to respond to the ident squawks.’

  ‘Ident squawks? I must’ve missed that in basic training.’

  ‘The dream learning? Didn’t anyone try picking you up by transmitting their contact data to you? Building systems seemed to know who you were without you saying anything?’

  ‘Uh… yeah, now you mention it.’ She paused for a second. ‘Actually, they didn’t try to pick me up…’

  Ella giggled. ‘Those simulations are amazingly real. And no consequences so you can just drop your inhibitions.’

  ‘You don’t have any inhibitions!’

  Ella pouted. ‘I do! Some. A few small ones… Anyway, hypocrisy alert. There’s not a person over the age of sixteen that doesn’t have one cybernetic implant. It’s a biological monitoring and identity unit that’s placed just behind the clavicle. Any authorised system can trigger it to squawk various levels of identity information, and medics can use it to help with diagnosis and treatment.’

  Aneka blinked. ‘You’re all LoJacked?’

  ‘I… don’t understand the term.’

  ‘Back in my day, people would fit gadgets to cars which could transmit their location if they were stolen. Criminals would be tagged with something similar to keep them within a designated area. Some parents used to do it with their kids’ mobile phones. It was called LoJacking after the car security brand. Doing it to people had a load of civil liberty implications.’

  ‘Security and convenience won out. Your house knows it’s you at the door, or a guest you’ve invited. Your car only works for you. Vending machines can get your data and charge your account automatically. Medical emergencies are far easier to deal with. People have been saved by these things.’

  Aneka gave a sigh. ‘If someone gives me the protocols, Al can replicate the interchanges necessary.’ They had arrived at the bridge and she reached up to press the button beside the door which requested entry. There was something which had not changed since her day; the door to the main control area of the craft was kept locked at all times. There was no perceptible pause before the door opened and they walked in to find Drake and Patton monitoring the ship’s progress toward Harriamon III.

  ‘I figured you’d come up as well, Ella,’ Drake commented. ‘We’re on path for high orbit insertion. Matching speed with Harriamon Naval Station.’

  The planet itself was nothing but dense cloud. Most of it was white with bands of grey, but Aneka could see faint splotches of yellow and orange which seemed to be under the outer layers. Of the surface there was no sign at all. The place looked like the pictures she had seen of Venus and she recalled that that was not a nice place for a vacation.

  ‘People live on that?’

  ‘Mostly under it,’ Ella replied. ‘There are a couple of habitation domes and various surface installations, but the majority of the people down there live underground. Miners, mostly. There are some surface facilities for the military. Rest and recreation. Sports, shops, prostitutes.’

  ‘It sounds l
ike a garden spot.’

  ‘The atmosphere is nitrogen, carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, sulphuric acid, more or less no free oxygen. All of it at about one-point-two atmospheres and nine-hundred Kelvin. No one can live on the surface.’

  ‘You seem to know it pretty well.’

  ‘I was born on that goshidwee. I absolutely hate the place.’

  ‘Go-she-what?’

  ‘Sorry, that’s Rimmic. It means… “Pile of dung?” “Shit heap?” Something like that. It’s like “gopi” which is “shit” as an exclamation.’

  Aneka grinned. ‘I’ll try to remember that.’

  The ship’s orientation changed and something else came into view. It was some form of station. A huge structure formed of three drums connected together by cross-scaffolding. It had to be over six-hundred metres across, a little longer than it was wide. A ring of gleaming solar panels circled part of the lower drum, and Aneka could see small ships moving in and out of huge doors on the middle and lower drums, and there were larger ones floating alongside it. One of them was huge, a long, slim, slab of metal with a sloping prow. Its hull shone in the sunlight and bristled with weapons turrets.

  ‘That’s an Admiral Class, isn’t it?’ Patton said. ‘What’s one of those doing at this place?’

  Drake’s gaze shifted from his screen to the huge ship. ‘That’s the Admiral Banfry.’

  ‘That’s the ship Monkey’s father captains, isn’t it?’ Aneka said. She knew it was; Monkey had told her.

  ‘Yes it is,’ Drake replied. ‘It looks like Ape Gibbons is taking a personal interest in this.’

  Aneka frowned. They had sent a battleship to meet an archaeology team, to meet her. Somehow that did not make her feel happy.

  Harriamon Naval Station

  The size of the station was brought into sharp focus by the fact that a three-hundred ton ship like the Garnet Hyde could just slide into one of its hanger bays without even coming close to the edges. Docking struts extended to lock the ship in place, and then a bridge was extended out to meet one of the airlocks.

  Drake and Patton stayed on the ship’s bridge, finalising the shutdown of flight systems, but the rest of the team headed off the ship as soon as the latches were secured. Aneka was more or less expecting what they found in the reception area on the other side of the gangway and had left her belt and gun in Ella’s cabin, the pistol packed away in its case. The others looked a little more surprised to see a squad of six armed soldiers waiting for them along with a man who had to be Captain Gibbons.

  He was huge. Not especially tall, but broad in the chest and shoulders, and all of his mass seemed to be muscle from the way he filled out his military-green ship-suit. He did look a lot like Monkey, though older with a more Roman nose and a broader chin. He also shaved his head, though it looked like he had to do that a fair bit from the stubble he was showing. His dark eyes fixed on the one member of the team not wearing a ship-suit as soon as Aneka appeared through the hatch.

  ‘Ape,’ Gilroy said, her voice carrying a pleased tone. ‘You know you didn’t have to come all the way out here to check on us.’

  Ape Gibbons had a pleasing baritone which carried more than a hint of firm authority. ‘Much as I’d love to say that was the case, Gillian, I’m here for Miss Jansen.’

  ‘What? She’s under contract to the University. She’s a member of my facilitation team.’ Aneka was rather pleased by the hard edge developing in Gilroy’s voice as she went on.

  ‘And you organised that without consulting the Administration. The captain of the Delta Guantina made his report concerning the xinti machines you discovered, and that added to the information you transmitted through raised a lot of red flags.’ The big man’s gaze shifted back to Aneka. ‘We’re to detain you for questioning, Miss Jansen. The Federal Administration wants to be sure of your allegiance.’

  ‘Dad,’ Monkey said, moving between Aneka and the men who were now raising the muzzles of their carbines, ‘she saved our lives. We’d be dead if it wasn’t…’ Aneka could see the tension in his body. She wondered how much effort it had taken to stand up to his father, and for a xinti machine at that.

  ‘The Delta Guantina was sent to pull you out before you could be harmed,’ Ape snapped.

  ‘We’d have been blood stains on the walls five days before they got there!’ He started to step forward, and then stopped and turned as Aneka put her hand on his shoulder.

  She gave him a smile. ‘Thank you, David. Your father is just doing his job.’ Walking past, she ignored the men now aiming their weapons at her. ‘All right, Captain, let’s get this over with.’

  Ape nodded. ‘Take her up to the holding cell,’ he said to one of the soldiers. His voice rose in intensity. ‘And treat her with respect. If she’s hurt I’ll have your hides.’

  As Aneka walked away she heard raised voices behind her. It seemed like a short exchange and it ended with Gilroy yelling, ‘Get the fuck away from me Tor Gibbons! I knew you were career military, but I never knew you were such an asshole!’ Gillian Gilroy could swear; who knew?

  6.11.523 FSC.

  For an interrogation room, it was really quite pleasant. A little sterile with the white, plastic coated walls and the textured metal floor, but better than the concrete cell Aneka had been in when she did her course on resisting interrogation. There was also a gleaming metal table, very polished and pristine. The seating arrangements were less pleasant; she was sitting in a metal chair, her ankles locked to the chair legs and her arms forced down behind her back, shackles holding her at the wrists and around her upper arms. She suspected this was supposed to be for the safety of her interrogators, if they ever showed up.

  She had been left in a cell with a very thick, windowless door overnight, and brought up to this room at nine-thirty in the morning. If they were keeping her waiting in an attempt to disorient her, they were wasting their time, and hers. The clock in the corner of her vision told her she had been waiting for thirty-eight minutes when the door hissed open and three people walked in.

  Ape Gibbons remained standing just inside the door, his hand resting on the butt of some sort of pistol he had strapped at his hip. The other two were new. Aneka pegged one of them as an android almost instantly; he moved into the room smoothly, no wasted action, and pulled out a chair for the woman who was last in. She sat and her bodyguard, because that was what Aneka figured the man was, stepped back. Aneka hoped the chairs were uncomfortable; hers was.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Jansen.’ The speaker was the woman. Aneka would have put her in her early twenties if it was not for her eyes. This was a shrewd, intelligent woman with too much life under her belt for the way she looked. Attractive, like almost everyone was attractive, she had a bob of blonde hair, blue eyes, and a pretty, but unremarkable, face. She was dressed in a standard, white ship-suit which showed off a trim figure. An intelligence agent of some sort; she had to be.

  ‘Morning,’ Aneka replied.

  ‘My apologies for keeping you waiting,’ the woman said. ‘I was delayed getting to the station. We are here to determine your purpose.’

  ‘I don’t have a purpose. I had a job, until you decided to arrest me.’

  The woman smiled; it did not reach her eyes. ‘The purpose the Xinti made you for.’

  ‘Oh, that. They wanted me to gather information on humans.’

  ‘I see…’

  ‘But that was eleven-hundred years ago. The Xinti are, I’m told, dead. The planet they wanted me to do this information gathering on is, I’m told, dead. So, if I had a purpose, it’s dead too.’

  The woman smiled again. She did not like being interrupted. No, she was not used to it. She was someone important, high ranking, and everyone else knew it and deferred to her. ‘The report filed by Doctor Gilroy and Captain Drake stated that your indoctrination was incomplete.’ Aneka looked at her, waiting for a question. After a second or two, the woman broke. ‘Would you care to comment?’

  ‘Conditioning.’

 
; ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Conditioning, not indoctrination.’ Aneka was not really sure what the distinction was, or the importance of the pedantic correction, but she felt it was needed. ‘They called it conditioning’

  ‘Whatever the case, it was not completed?’

  ‘From what I remember, the head alien body-snatcher was annoyed that his work was being interrupted. He claimed I might develop greater resistance in future and should be put in stasis until the problem could be resolved. It never was.’

  ‘And yet you let seven Xinti combat robots go without attacking them,’ Ape said.

  ‘Hmm, yes,’ Aneka replied, her tone musing. ‘I probably should have opened fire on them. That way when the five heavily armoured war robots blasted me and everyone else to crap I’d have had the satisfaction of knowing I’d put a dent in their armour.’

  ‘They were xinti…’

  She cut him off. ‘They were robots. Computers. They didn’t choose to be stuck on that rock for centuries waiting for someone to come and relieve them. They were grunts. Soldiers just like I used to be and you are, and they elected to kill themselves rather than give themselves up. And from where I’m sitting, they were right.’ From his expression, he did not like being interrupted either.

  ‘Our intelligence regarding the Xinti,’ the woman said, ‘indicates that they were ruthless. They attacked without provocation and it took the combined efforts of three races, and the near annihilation of all of us, to bring them down. Every xinti we have ever met has attacked on sight, without any attempt to communicate, and given no quarter.’

  ‘Did you ever try talking to them? You don’t even know how they communicated. Drake and Patton thought they were picking up radio noise bursts. How do you know all those xinti you’ve been blowing apart haven’t been desperately trying to surrender?’

  Ape’s face stiffened, though Aneka could not tell whether it was the idea she was proposing or that she was proposing it at all. Maybe it was both; people did not usually like to have their past decisions questioned. ‘Look,’ Aneka went on, ‘I get it, I really do. You had a huge war with the Xinti and it almost wiped out everyone. You don’t like the Xinti. I don’t like them much either since they kidnapped me and my men, killed us all and then stuffed what’s left of my mind in this body. But I’m not a xinti.’