Tales from the Edge: Escalation: A Maelstrom's Edge Collection

by Stephen Gaskell

  In the same way she'd swiftly become pregnant and swiftly married, Danna swiftly returned home after her losses. She'd buried her grief in raw humour and new boyfriends.

  Gabe appreciated Brook's tireless personality. He'd also made inroads with her uncompromising father. Elliot recognized that Blue's future was a dead-end if ranching and farming were their highest prospects. He wanted more for his daughters. He wanted money and political power, and he'd coaxed Gabe into revealing his own dreams.

  It didn't hurt that Brook was daddy's favourite. Through her, Elliot saw the opportunity to become Gabe's business partner, so despite haggling with Brook and Gabe over every aspect of their lives, he'd blessed their relationship.

  They were married within thirteen months. A wife and sons were amazing new experiences for Gabe, demanding and fulfilling. His work was going well.

  Then the Maelstrom.

  *

  The sex was very good. Danna moved like an untamed animal and she wanted to stroke and be stroked until he was blind with need. He threw her down on the bed. She laughed and crossed her ankles over the small of his back, enveloping him.

  Afterward, they rested. They showered. "Again," she said, and he made love to her standing beneath the running water.

  Brook returned while they sat at the dining table with crackers and cheese. She blushed and smiled tremulously as she walked to her sister and her husband, kissing Danna on top of her head, kissing Gabe on his cheek. "Where is Jammy? Bring him tomorrow. From now on we're always together. We may need to leave in a hurry. But I get Gabe at night when we sleep."

  Danna's voice was a taunting lilt. "Why don't we ask him what he wants?"

  "My husband, my rules," Brook said, and Gabe immediately supported her. He took their hands and said, "We can make this work. We have to. For the boys. Don't fight."

  Later, with the lights out, Brook whispered in his arms. She believed her plan would succeed. There were so many kinds of glue to bind them. She knew Danna envied her on some levels. What might have been less apparent was Brook often felt jealous of Danna's behaviour.

  This was more than adultery. Their triangle was as precarious as any tide pool, lively, intricately balanced and lurking with unpredictable threats.

  To bring her sister into the fold and to save her nephew, Brook was willing to share. Frightened and alone, Danna had shown that she coveted this intimacy. No doubt she also enjoyed figuratively kicking a little gravel in Brook's face. It was a small cost to pay.

  An unanticipated prize was that the next morning after a restless sleep, Gabe and Brook made love, too, and their tenderness gave way to fresh lust.

  She was noisy. He was fierce.

  Cuddling afterward, she admitted she was glad for the passion he'd displayed with her. They had been married seven years. Like all parents, most of the time they were Mommy and Daddy. Every day they ran themselves ragged with his surveying, his lab work, their jobs on the farm and her hectic roles as manager, salesperson, homemaker and mother. Their marriage was solid but they'd fallen into the rut of habit.

  If they were going to die, she wanted to bask in him. They would give most of their time to their sons, comforting them, laughing over special games and memories, but she yearned for physical pleasure to ward off the mental strain.

  "Don't forget you loved me first," she said.

  *

  Thirty minutes later, the adults met Elliot inside the broad, fragrant tunnel of the farm. Jammy, Mike and Van tagged along. Every morning they had chores but Elliot said, "Skip it, boys. Play guns or tag. Eat the berries if they're ripe."

  Jammy poked Van and Mike. Yelling, the boys ran off through the rows of wheat and makize.

  Elliot peered suspiciously at Danna. Was there something peculiar in how she stood? With a grunt, Elliot said, "You've already broken your word to me, Gabe."

  Brook admitted it. "He told us everything."

  She's so bold. She's braver than ever, Gabe thought, but he said, "Elliot, your girls are smart and we're running out of time. Here's how I see things."

  Gabe was uncomfortably aware of the two women and Elliot's prying gaze as he evaluated their options.

  Attacking the port was a last-ditch strategy, certain to fail. Having said that, they might keep their neighbours occupied if they swayed enough people to mount an assault. Sending a ragtag army against Singh's defenses could buy them several hours to accomplish other tasks.

  Convincing one of the private ship owners to accept the eight of them also seemed formidable, but Gabe was prepared to make the same arguments he'd given Singh.

  "No, Singh was right," Elliot said. "Nobody gives a damn about your snakes. We can sell 'em, we can cook 'em, we can leave 'em here. What we're not going to do is waste room on a ship for some animals."

  "I don't think all of the hunters or conservationists would agree with you," Gabe said.

  "They will if it comes down to saving their families or the snakes. Get off your high road. Would you leave Van if it meant a snake would live?"

  Van wasn't Elliot's favourite because the boy was bookish, even pensive. Gabe almost said, I'd leave you, Grandpa. Instead he presented more ideas. "We can hijack one of the hunters' ships, or build our own ship," he added, although mech shops were few and lacked the technology for a spaceworthy vessel. "We could steal what we need from the town's garages."

  "At least you're thinking," Elliot said. "I like it. Let's try everything on the list. Gabe, buy what you can in the shops. Give 'em any price. Girls, circulate among our friends and mention attacking the port. I'll call my buddies in the sail clans. We'll meet again in two hours."

  "Let me talk to the boys before I go," Gabe said. "They'll be safe here if they seal the doors." He kissed Brook and glanced at Danna, who met his eyes with a smouldering look. He turned away before Elliot noticed.

  Gabe jogged through a wheat field to find his sons. Mike and Jammy were wrestling. Of course Jammy was winning. Mike didn't care. He loved the challenge and he loved being the centre of attention as Van tried to help him against their taller, older cousin. Van smacked Jammy's shoulder and jumped up and down, cheering, "Get him, Mike! Get him!"

  Gabe dusted the boys off and made sure they were paying attention. "Don't let anybody in," he said. "Promise."

  Jammy argued with him. "What if it's my friends?"

  "Do not open the door. If you wait for me, I'll let you feed three huge buckets to our breeders."

  "Yay!" Mike shouted.

  Along the inner wall of the farm were pumps, filters, and ten steel tanks with glass portholes and open-air grates on top. The smell was a pungent salt tang. A constant sound was the rasping, clicking drumbeat as the snakes rubbed against the tanks or scraped their pinchers.

  Gabe believed they were communicating with each other. The snakes appeared to use specific clacking patterns -- like names -- to identify him or Elliot or Brook.

  The snakes definitely called to each other. The tanks were connected by tubes, but Gabe separated the males from the females, especially the banded snakes, who were more aggressive than the spotted breed or the mules. Snakes bred poorly in captivity. He needed them fat and relaxed.

  Dropping frozen crabs into the tanks was a favourite activity because he'd trained the banded males to caterwaul for this treat -- an eerie soprano melody.

  "Do we have a deal?" Gabe asked his sons.

  "Yes," Van said.

  "Good boys," Gabe said, making sure to include Jammy in his praise. Puzzled, Jammy frowned at him.

  Gabe strode to the main entrance. Elliot and Brook were gone but Danna sauntered out of their tool shed. She'd found an excuse to linger. She marched up close and murmured, "Did you mean what you said to my father? That I'm smart?"

  "When you're not being stupid, you're extremely smart, D."

  She laughed at the nickname. Her smile dared him to do more. He pushed her against the wall and they were necking with her hands inside his shirt, lost in each other, when Elliot shoved Da
nna off of Gabe.

  "You filthy slug." Elliot drew his knife.

  "It's not--" Gabe began, but Brook was there, too. "Don't hurt them!" she cried.

  Later, Gabe suspected that she'd urged her sister to stay, Elliot heard the girls talking, circled back, Brook saw him, and all four of them collided when they should have been developing their plans.

  "What is this?" Elliot grunted. He pointed his blade at Danna, then Gabe. He glared at Brook. "You knew?"

  "I told them to." Tears spilled down her cheeks when she spotted the boys gawking through the rows of wheat, but her voice was resilient. "You can't control this! You shouldn't! I've seen triune marriages in the camps!"

  "There aren't enough girls on the shores. Those bonds are two men, one woman. It's not lawful to--"

  "What difference does it make!? The world is ending and I want Jammy and Danna to live! Your grandson! Your daughter! Would you rather she disappears with the pill heads!?!"

  Elliot sheathed his knife. Nevertheless, he injured his firstborn. "It's dirty," he said before he walked out.

  Brook wept in exhaustion and shame.

  Danna grabbed her, squeezing tight and speaking loudly. "Thank you. Thank you, B."

  Gabe wrapped his arms around both women. He waved for the boys to join him but Jammy bristled with inarticulate hostility. Jammy's mother had dallied with many men. This was something else. Jammy didn't know how to share her with his cousins. He pointed at Brook and muttered, "This is your fault?"

  "Jam, come here," Danna said. "Wait!"

  Jammy shoved Van and Mike before he raced into the field, ducking his face from their wondering eyes.

  "I'm sorry," Danna said. "B, I'm sorry. I'll talk to Jam. Let us stay. We need to stay with you. I'll do anything you want."

  Being exposed to their father's disgust had entrenched them in their complex roles. Senior wife. Junior wife. Obligation, love, loyalty, and raw survival for the children's sake. Their private heat was their reward.

  Would it tear them apart before the Maelstrom?

  *

  Elliot couldn't look at his daughters when they met hours later. "My contacts are off the grid," he said. "They know everyone'll kill 'em for their ships, even old friends like me. They're not taking calls and I can't tap into the satellites. The Franchise shut down communications. We have radio links with Kerrystown and a few of the camps, that's it."

  "I made some progress," Gabe said. "I bought ten mech. With our own hardware, we should have enough to build a ship but it'll take time -- weeks -- if we can make it work at all. The gate will close before then."

  Danna raised her hand like a timid student in class, barely able to withstand their attention.

  Brook encouraged her. "Go ahead."

  "I talked to the Riveras. Their father was mad about the satellites, too," Danna said, clearly hoping for a nod from Elliot. His expression was like stone. She said, "They have mech near the port. They caught an intercept from Dury IV and they played it for me until Mr. Rivera stopped them."

  "He didn't want you to hear it? Why?"

  Danna still couldn't look at them and she hedged her answer. "Some of it was the usual stuff. Dury IV is going to jump rimward. If they go far enough, maybe they can shield their fleets or learn how to make a gate into another galaxy."

  Brook looked at Gabe. "Is that possible?"

  He shrugged. "It hasn't been done yet, but trying to improve our gates doesn't sound like a big secret. Everybody wants to get away."

  "Dury IV is having problems," Danna said. "They've got so many people. Billions of people. There are riots in their cities."

  Brook said, "That could affect how they treat our ships coming through the gate."

  Danna nodded. "They just changed their terms with Singh. Now they only want her top officials, her pilots, her soldiers, and experts in life support or terraforming. They had a list. Gabe was on it."

  "When did you hear this?" Elliot demanded.

  "An hour ago. Maybe longer." Danna's tone was uncertain.

  "Who else listened to the intercept?"

  "I don't know. Mr. Rivera was mad when he caught me with his sons. They were being friendly. We... I went to school with them," Danna explained. She didn't want to disappoint her father but Gabe realized why Elliot was afraid in a cold flash.

  Gabe said, "Whether they meant to or not, Dury IV put a bounty on my head. If people think I'm their ticket off this planet, they'll come for me."

  "Girls, arm yourselves," Elliot said. "Gabe and I will seal the doors. We'll arm the boys, too."

  "You won't," Brook said. "They're six years old."

  "Jammy can shoot. Mike and Van will reload." Elliot had taught his grandsons himself. "Let's go. Move!"

  Minutes later, Elliot called the Rivera family.

  He tried his phone. He tried the radio.

  Nobody picked up.

  "Damn it," Elliot said quietly to Gabe. "We go back thirty years, me and Edgar Rivera. Brook's the one who went to advanced classes with his boys. Danna dated all four of 'em. Edgar and I hoped she'd marry one."

  "Can you trust him?"

  "Mm." Elliot patted his rifle.

  There were benefits and burdens in communal living. The settlers had always been short on the machinery necessary for power and air, which demanded efficiency and shared spaces. They raised each other's children. They bought each other's wares. They also gossiped and bickered and feuded.

  Elliot was a lightning rod. His property covered two thousand square meters and occupied a prime location on Sharonstown's perimeter, where he had his own air lock, garage, and two apartments -- one for himself, one for Brook and Gabe. Some people said even the corridor leading to his farm was too big and should be subdivided, but Elliot refused to sell his rights to the hallway, where he maintained a private door.

  No one else enjoyed such separation from their peers. The centre of Sharonstown was packed. Poor families, young men and unattached women like Danna lived in ten-by-ten studios or worse. Teens and destitute adults slept in the public halls, fighting for corners or stairwells. Sharonstown had become a maze of partitions and stalls. Some were mere curtains. Some were walls of scrap metal or cement.

  Elliot's neighbours consisted of a smaller farm, four shops, and ten apartments crammed with eighteen families. Several of them had taken him to court for "inequitable property holdings," especially after Singh arrested him for involving Franchise personnel in the crab fights, human fights and gambling he'd staged in his famous corridor. Elliot had the clout to influence the town judges, but he also had his enemies.

  He was showing Mike and Van how to brace an Epirian assault rifle against their chubby little shoulders when someone put a welding torch to his door.

  *

  "I'll scare 'em off," Elliot said. He ran down the corridor and knelt with his rifle behind a pallet of soil boxes.

  "Grandpa!" Jammy yelled.

  Jammy had a rifle, too, but Gabe snatched the weapon from the boy's hands and slung it over his shoulder. He kept Jammy in the entrance to the farm.

  "Stay here," Gabe said as the torch spluttered and blazed like the Maelstrom itself.

  Jammy wrestled free. "Leave me alone!"

  Gabe seized his arm. "Jam, you can't go down there."

  At the end of the corridor, Elliot yelled at the door. "You know who I am! I will shoot to kill if--"

  An explosion ripped through the concrete wall between Elliot and Gabe, hurling chunks of debris. The raiders knew Elliot's property. They'd orchestrated a two-pronged assault on his door and deep into his private corridor.

  In the cloud of smoke, Jammy drew his folding knife. The boy was impossibly brave. Gabe stepped in front of him and fired at the hole in the wall. "Elliot! Get back!"

  The door fell apart. Men rushed through. They wore hunting armour. Elliot emptied his rifle, firing low, shredding their feet and shins. Their screams were horrible... and behind Gabe, the snakes screeched in their tanks.

  Mor
e people appeared from the wall. They had stun guns. A bolt lanced into the concrete by Gabe's ear.

  Gabe pushed Jammy down.

  Danna took her son's place, levelling a rifle. Brook appeared beside her. The sisters' weapons chattered on full auto. There were more shrieks in the corridor and from the snakes inside the farm.

  Crouching at Brook's hip, Gabe squeezed off two bursts. He saw bodies on the floor and a mob of faces inside the hole in the wall. Down the corridor, the withering fire of rifles and a shotgun had Elliot pinned.

  They were badly outnumbered. Blood dripped from Elliot's side, caking in the grey dust on his shirt. Beneath the gunshots, Elliot hollered, "Gabe! Gabe! Go!"

  Elliot had stuck an excavation charge in his gun belt with spare magazines and his knife.

  He lifted it toward the ceiling.

  "Get inside!" Gabe yelled at Danna and Brook. Still firing, Danna retreated past him. Her rifle was deafening. Brook didn't hear. Gabe slammed his weapon into Brook's legs, knocking her backward. His other hand slapped at a control panel. He sealed the entrance to the farm.

  On the other side, he heard the boom of Elliot's charge and the violent whump as the corridor's ceiling blew out. The rubble clattered in the hurricane. The human sounds were less distinct, almost ghostly.

  Mike and Van scampered to the adults with masks they'd taken from the shed. In the ninety seconds Gabe needed to prepare, the corridor fell silent. He equipped himself with a mask. He double-checked that the women and children had donned their own respirators.

  "Jammy, you're in charge," Gabe said. He returned the boy's rifle. He told Brook and Danna what he wanted. Then he tapped a security code on the control panel.

  The entrance cracked open half-a-meter wide. Air bellowed over Gabe's back like an avalanche, thrusting him into the corridor. Brook and Danna followed.