“I’ll follow orders. I promise,” he said.
“You said that during the Lockhart raid,” I said. “Then you decided you needed to go to the bathroom and took the laz-cannon with you.” I pointed at the toilet. “Remember how that turned out?”
“I didn’t know it was on,” he said. “Come on, please, Molly? Please, please.”
I pushed away from the wall. At five-five, I barely came up to the centre of his chest, but Mickey took a squeaky step back from me. He had a look of stupid innocence on his face, wide eyes under his almost single eyebrow. Mouth open in an almost perpetual “o”. But I could see tiny traces of Mac in the angle of Mickey’s nose and the line of his jaw. Even though Mickey was older, Mac had always been the one to look after him.
I jabbed my finger against Mickey’s chest.
“You do exactly what I tell you, when I tell you,” I said. “You don’t ask stupid questions. In fact, you don’t ask any questions at all. You don’t make any stupid comments and you do exactly what I tell you.”
“You just said stuff twice.”
I dug my finger in harder. “Mickey!”
He held up his thick fingered hands in surrender. “Kay! Kay!”
“Fix your boots so they don’t squeak and do up the buttons on those overalls properly,” I said.
“Huh?” he said.
* * *
At oh five hundred the next morning, Mickey and I disembarked from the ship. As per the plan, Mac had piloted the ship into a low orbit, using the precisely timed rotation of the sun along with an artificial flare blast that created a brief moment of static for the security satellites, just long enough for Mac to slide into orbit. At his signal, Mickey and I slipped out of the airlock and into space.
My breath sounded loud in my helmet. Even with the cooling unit on high, I always felt a little too warm in my space suit. No matter how many times I put one on my body seemed to know there was only a thing piece of fabric between it and space and my body didn’t like it one bit.
It sometimes made my life as a space bandit challenging.
I made a hand gesture to Mickey who hung in the blackness just a few feet away. Mickey was as much at ease in his space suit as I was a little nervous in mine. It was one of his few good qualities.
A thin steel wire connected us together. Mickey nodded and set up a small burst from his propeller. The flare of it burned white against him for a moment then he was moving forward, tugging me along for the ride.
The moon hung “above” me and even as we floated along, we began to fall upward at a greater and greater speed. This was the first dangerous part of the job. We couldn’t use any mechanical device to land on the moon. Security sweeps were looking for any energy signature. Even the brief flare of Mickey’s propeller was a risk.
The moon’s gravity was a fraction of one gee but hitting it hard enough could still cause a problem.
Fortunately, I’d come up with a solution.
I hoped.
We fell faster and faster in silence. The moon stretched above my head, details of the landscape becoming clearer the closer we got. But even as we fell, the moon rotated beneath us. I spotted several artificial craters in a diamond pattern from Falva’s information. Just beneath there was the chamber of the Eye of the Moon. A moment later, an outcropping of rock passed by.
One of the secondary security entrances, camouflaged to appear as a natural feature on the moon.
A moment later it was gone.
Mickey and I were picking up speed. And still falling upward.
Now this was a problem.
I glanced over at Mickey. He too was falling head first toward the surface. We both needed to turn in order to land feet first, otherwise our landing would be the last thing we ever did.
I gave a tug on the wire connecting us. When Mickey turned his helmet toward me, I pulled my legs up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. I nodded and he tugged hard on the wire.
I started to rotate. When the moon passed out of sight, I let go of my legs. But I had too much momentum. My spin continued and I faced the moon again, closer. Then it spun away and I saw the blackness of space above me. Another spin, and there was the moon.
Even closer.
Damn.
The spin hadn’t been such a good idea after all.
But maybe I could use it.
From my rate of falling, I figured I might have another couple of spins before I hit the surface. I bent my knees and triggered my boots. The kanga-soles extended. Designed for fast travel across low gravity planets, we’d been engaged to steal a shipment for duplicating by a rival company and I’d liberated a few pairs for us when we made delivery.
We’d never had the chance to use them except for testing.
In the safety of the ship, it had seemed like such a great idea.
Maybe Mickey wasn’t the only idiot around.
One final spin. My back was to the moon. I could almost feel it rushing toward me, ready to snap my spine in two. Sweat coated my body. The cooling unit hummed loud in my ears but not as loud as my laboured breath. Damn, I hated miscalculating! I wanted that week alone on the ship with Mac.
I shoved my feet back.
The boots made contact with the ground first.
The kanga-soles responded.
I leapt up and forward. The motion let me straighten. I tugged on the wire. Mickey swerved toward me. A moment later, he was hitting the ground, his legs bent beneath him.
His kanga-soles sent him in a soaring leap too.
As he flew past me, I could see his big grin reflecting in his helmet.
Oh sure, he hadn’t been worried.
Now that we’d made ground fall, I detached the wire from my belt. Mickey detached as well and it floated away behind us. We traversed the distance in great leaps until we were a hundred metres from the main security outcropping. I used the kanga-soles to slow us and bring us all the way to the ground until we were fifty metres away.
I dialed into the security system and set it to a low hum. The click and clatter of Chaka’hala voices murmured in the background.
The soil had an odd silvery sheen to it as we crouched down. Around us, the land was flat. Not much cover but according to Falva’s intelligence, most of the security was focused on tracking energy signatures and outputs from space suits needed for a Chaka’hala.
They wouldn’t be looking for humans.
I hoped.
I signaled Mickey. We moved forward in a sliding motion that kept us close to the ground. I didn’t like how the dust puffed up behind us and hung in the air but it couldn’t be helped. Even seeing it made my nose itch. Using the kanga-soles this close to the outcropping meant risking overshooting the target. I didn’t think I’d get another chance to close in on it.
The plan was a basic shock and awe. We’d use a stun shield to knock out the personnel then break into the air lock to head for the Eye. While Mickey kept watch, I would get the Eye, and we’d be gone within half an hour.
Easy peasy.
At ten metres, I sank to the ground and started crawling. Mickey followed my lead. Through my gloves, I imagined I could feel the coldness of the sand running through my fingers as I crept forward. Just five metres now. My heart sped up. My blood roared in my ears. Now I was the grinning in my helmet. My favourite part of the job, just before it all started.
Just before it all went to hell.
I caught a flash of light out of the corner of my eye.
I turned my helmet.
Mickey the idiot had triggered his propeller. He fumbled to a kneeling position and got one foot under him.
The kanga-sole shot him upward. The propeller flared brighter and he soared over the outcropping.
A moment later, loud clacks sounded in my ears.
Oh great. They’d noticed Mickey for sure.
I hit the dirt.
In front of me, I saw part of the rock outcropping shift. The silver side facing toward my right shifted and slid
away. Several troopers piled out, leaping away in Mickey’s direction. Over their heads, I could see Mickey’s space suit shining against the blackness of space as he took a great leap and soared away.
Was he actually leading them off?
Maybe, just maybe.
It had to be dumb luck.
But I’d take all the luck I could get.
I scrambled forward and reached the airlock. They hadn’t reset the lock so it slid open easily for me. I crouched, ready with the stun shield.
The control room beyond sat empty.
Silver panels covered the walls. A central control sphere squatted in the middle of the room, surrounded by six squat chairs.
Chairs for the six security personnel I’d seen chasing Mickey.
I hurried to the control sphere and checked the panel readout. The controls looked familiar from Falva’s briefing. It only took me a minute of fumbling with the jeweled switches to find the correct sequence revealing the passage down to the Eye of the Moon.
From there, it was a quick jog down the narrow silver corridor. The low ceiling brushed the top of my helmet, forcing me to crouch. Although there was an atmosphere in the security station, I kept my suit on and sealed. I just never knew when I’d need to be protected.
The corridor led down, deeper into the centre of the moon. I lost count of the levels but recognized the glowing marks on the floor, branching off the main corridor to a silver titanium door. I recognized the locks on it. High end versions from the Persellion Corporation. Very high tech, very expensive.
This would take some time.
My hands were already sweating in my gloves as I reached the door. Disabling the palm lock took only moments. The DNA reader would take a little longer.
My helmet started to steam up from my breath. The air was tasting sour and I could smell my own sweat. The excitement of the beginning of the job had been replaced by anxiety when things started to go wrong. How long before they caught up to Mickey? I knew the punishment for attempting to steal the Eye. Suspended animation burial for one hundred years then another twenty-five to fifty on a penal colony.
Not death, but Mac would still be pissed.
I peeled off my helmet and gloves. Feeling the slim controls with my fingers made it easier to reprogram. The DNA reader beeped and glowed green when I finished. Fooled.
Next was the regular tumbler lock set in the centre of the door. For all of the heft of the titanium door, Persellion had never gotten around to changing the tumbler mechanism.
I had the door open in under a minute.
And that’s when I bounded into the chamber, helmet and gloves tucked under my arm, ready to scoop up the Eye of the Moon and get the hell out.
But the chamber was empty, except for the alien squatting in the centre of the chamber.
It looked like a mound of spilled oatmeal, greyish and kind of lumpy. When I walked in, it the mound stretched itself up to a height of almost two feet, as if to take a look at me. Several of the lumpier parts turned toward me.
“Uh, hi,” I said.
The surface shimmered and I noticed the lumps were blinking at me. Definitely eyes then.
I waved.
A quick glance around the chamber showed it was empty of anything else.
No jewel.
Nothing.
Just the same silver panels lining the walls as in the corridor. The same polished black tiles on the floor. The ceiling here curved up in a dome shape, with a hole in the centre above the oatmeal alien.
As I watched, several jewels fell from the hole and landed smack in the middle of the oatmeal. The surface puckered and enveloped the jewels. Several of the eyes closed and the entire alien shivered. A moment later, the jewels were pushed out at the bottom onto the floor.
And I could see they were different. They had the internal glow of the emotive jewels the Chaka’hala were famous for.
The alien extended a phyllopod toward me, pushing the largest jewel in my direction. It was green and the glow was deep inside the irregular rock. When I didn’t step forward, the alien nudged the jewel a little closer.
Clearly, it wanted me to pick it up.
Oh what the hell.
I set my helmet and gloves down on the floor and reached for the jewel. It felt cool in my fingers. The edges were a bit rough, a bit unpolished, still it had a pretty green glow inside.
Then I felt the blast of emotions flood me.
A great singing joy flowed over me. I stumbled back. My legs shook and then failed me, spilling me to the floor. I rocked on my rump, clutching the jewel as the emotions swept through me. Joy, anger, passion, fear, excitement, curiosity. After a moment, the rush faded to a trickle.
I sagged, almost bending forward. Strands of my hair stuck to my forehead. I could feel the tears on my cheeks.
A voice filled my mind.
Welcome child, I at your service.
The oatmeal alien. I felt laughter trickle through me as it read my image of it. It felt like an old grandmother, good-natured, with a hint of mischief.
The warmth it sent to me deepened. It liked the image of a grandmother, especially the mischief part.
“You’re the Eye,” I said. “You infuse these jewels with your emotions and they react to others.”
The laughter increased. It was well pleased with my cleverness.
“I’m supposed to steal you.”
Confusion took the place of laughter.
It took me a while to explain the concept of stealing. It seemed more and more ridiculous as I began to realize the Eye remained here of its own desire. It enjoyed infusing emotions onto the jewels. It believed it was creating understanding and harmony across the universe. The concept of taking part of that away from one being to another being was quite foreign to it.
And when it finally grasped my meaning, it didn’t feel too happy about it.
Neither was I.
I had been expecting a special jewel, not an alien who was happy where it was.
We both crouched on the floor for a few minutes before the idea came to me. My fingers tightened on the green jewel as I smiled over at the oatmeal alien. Before I could even open my mouth, it understood my thoughts.
And I could feel its own smile all over my body.
* * *
It cost almost all of our fee to bail Mickey out from the Chaka’hala authorities. They were somewhat upset about our break-in but finding the Eye safely intact, they settled for the high bail money.
Falva was equally happy to receive his Eye, a guarantee that the new colony would be self-supporting right away. After he wired the remaining payment to us, Mac forwarded it onward to the Chaka’hala authorities for Mickey’s bail.
Mac and I sat in the cargo hold of our ship, awaiting Mickey’s return. Mac leaned against the scuffed bulkhead, his arms folded over his chest.
“So let me get this straight, you stole the Eye and left the Eye?”
I sipped coffee from a drink bulb. “Not quite. I explained to the Eye that a faction of the Chaka’hala was leaving the planet to begin its own colony and that they wanted it to go with them. That’s when I realized it could maybe do both. Stay and go. It liked the idea and split in two.”
“Split in two.”
“You know. Osmosis.”
“I know osmosis,” Mac said. “But you said it’s the same creature.”
“It is,” I said. “It’s the same consciousness in both parts.” I smiled. “It asked me if I could ‘steal’ another part of it again in a few years. I think it liked the idea of spreading itself around.”
“It’s not really stealing when it’s voluntary,” he said.
“That’s what I said.” I took another sip of coffee. “So how much is left.”
Mac sighed. “A few hundred credits. Enough to fuel up and replenish our supplies.”
All that money, gone to pay for Mickey’s bail. More than enough to pay for Mac’s mother’s new brain and a full upgrade.
Instead,
we were stuck with Mickey and his sub-normal brain.
“We could always leave...” I started.
“No,” he said.
“Just for a little while,” I said. “We could take care of your mother and then get another portion of the Eye. Get a great price for it. Mickey would never know the difference. It’s almost like he’s asleep most of the time anyway.”
“Molly,” Mac said.
I knew that warning tone.
I shut up.
I didn’t want to push too hard.
The Eye wasn’t the only one who liked mischief.
I shrugged and sipped my coffee as we waited for Mickey’s return.
END
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About the Author
Based in Toronto, Canada, I write horror, science fiction and mystery/crime, often all at once in the same story. Garnering an Honorable Mention in “The Year’s Best Science Fiction” and nominated for numerous Aurora Awards, my work has appeared in Tesseracts: 16: Parnassus Unbound, Ride the Moon, Tesseracts 15: A Case of Quite Curious Tales, TransVersions, Deadbolt Magazine, On Spec, The Vampire’s Crypt, Storyteller, Reflection’s Edge, Future Syndicate and Into the Darkness, amongst others.
Check out some of my other titles:
Fetch: A Molly Nomad Caper
Mind Hunt: A Science Fiction/Mystery Novel
The Soul Within: A Science Fiction/Mystery Novel
Beyond Control: A Science Fiction Novella (Prequel to the Beyond Saga)
Beyond Reach: A Science Fiction Novella (Book 1 of the Beyond Saga)
Beyond Bounds: A Science Fiction Novel (Book 2 of the Beyond Saga)
Beyond Limits: A Science Fiction Novel (Book 3 of the Beyond Saga)
Eyes Have It: A Science Fiction Story Page 2