by Gwynn White
Dothylian stared at it, glancing at Keva.
Keva closed her eyes, searching for patience. “You shake his hand and tell him your name.”
“Dothylian.” She grasped Fallow’s fingertips.
He raised his eyebrows, the corners of his lips turned down as he extracted his hand. “Payment.”
Keva clucked her tongue. He’d taken her military knife in exchange for her first ident chip three years ago. Who knew what peculiar object might tickle his fancy this time. “Name it.”
He ran his tongue along his teeth. “I want something only an Elite would have.”
That was something she could do. “Done. How about a ceremonial seaweed knife? It’s the blade of an Elite assassin.”
He thought about it for a moment. “Done.”
“ILO, have one of my ceremonial knives, the one with the thin Bontarian seaweed, packaged up and couriered to Fallow.”
“Yes Keva, right away.”
He turned, forgetting his crate. “I’ll call the Ident.”
The Ident was the old woman who collected the identity chips of the deceased. Keva followed. “Where do you want us?”
He stopped, turned, and appraised them for a moment. “Keva, with me. We need to talk. You?” He motioned toward Dothylian. “Have you chosen a name?”
She shrugged.
“She’s about as creative with names as I am,” Keva said. “Which isn’t very.”
“I know. Your ship’s name?”
“I didn’t name it Ghost Star.”
“And you didn’t change it either.”
“And we need to now because we’re flying under a different transponder.”
He paused. “How the—no.” He held up a hand and shook his head. “No. I don’t need to know. Okay, girlie-girl. Let’s focus on something we can change. Your name.”
“He means that in a nice way,” Keva said, holding her hand out to keep Dothylian from reacting to the insult. The Elite didn’t take well to being called names, something Keva learned early in her first undercover mission. While the woman hadn’t thrown any tantrums in Keva’s presence, that didn’t mean she wasn’t capable of it. It just meant she might be better at hiding them. There might be a…few things Keva could learn from Dothylian.
Fallow narrowed his blue-lined eyes at Keva before turning his attention back to the other woman. “What’s your name?”
“Dothylian Solvei.”
Fallow shivered and pulled a face. “Well, good riddance. She’s saving you. You realize that, right? Just from the name. Dothylian. How brutally formal.”
Keva winced a smile. “Her sister used to call her Lily.”
“Well, then we can’t use that. What do you call her?” He tipped his head at Keva. “Because I know you haven’t been calling her Dothylian.” He lowered his voice when he said her name mockingly.
She loved Fallow, but right now, he was pushing a lot of buttons, and Keva hoped Dothylian wasn’t about to explode. “Dot. I’ve been calling her Dot.”
Fallow pulled the corners of his lips down and nodded. “Dottie. It’s all settled. Now, Dottie, you stay here. The Ident will be here shortly to give you a new chip. She’ll give you the surname. You tell her your new first name. Keva, you’re with me.”
Keva turned to Dothylian—Dottie and gave her a smile. “Are you ready?”
The other woman shrugged. “Dottie. It’s okay. I think it will be fine.”
“It’ll,” Keva reminded her. “Don’t go all formal on me now. The new name will pop up in the registry, but that happens a lot more often than people think. It’s imperative you act spacer-normal until we get the new name worked in. The cameras are going to be watching you for several months, and the AIs will be developing a personality profile of you, so be careful.”
Dottie frowned but nodded.
“I’ll be in the bar. Just… don’t freak out.”
“What is—what’s the Ident?” Dottie asked, swallowing. She wrung her hands.
The woman had been cool as a cucumber, but now, at the moment of truth, she had second thoughts. Keva couldn’t blame her. “She’s an old woman. She usually travels with two men. The process is painful but simple, a long needle and pressure as the chip you have is shorted out, and a new one is installed. It takes a while to heal, but the pain goes away quickly. You’ll be fine.”
Dottie’s eyes widened.
“Just remember how much you want to survive.” Which might not be enough. “And honor Eddqin’s work with the AIs.”
Dottie took in a deep breath and nodded.
“Stay here when the Ident comes. Do whatever she asks. I’m taking care of payment so don’t let them try to swindle you into paying more. You’re going to do great.”
That did the trick. Keva gave Dottie another reassuring smile—at least she hoped it was—and left. She followed Fallow and took a position at the end of the u-shaped bar, close to the back door. The place was full. The Jiggling Donkey didn’t seem to have a lull time.
“So, what are you naming that ship of yours?” Fallow grabbed a bottle and two glasses.
“I have no idea. I was going to let Doth—Dottie name it, but that isn’t a promising idea.”
“Why not?” He poured two glasses of amber liquid.
“She’s overthinking it.”
“Well, let me help you. My brothers and I have been thinking this over lots the last three years.”
Seriously? “Fal, aren’t there are more important things for you guys to think about?”
“That’s what Sparrow said, which is why we cut her out of the discussions.”
Keva laughed. “She’s the only one with a level head in your pod.”
“And you’re a podling without a pod, which is why we adopted you.” Fallow widened his blue-shadowed eyes and gave her a prim, shut-the-hell-up look. “So, you’ll take our damned help.”
Keva raised her hands in surrender. “Fine.” She did miss the closeness of her pod, the near hive-mind, but there were few of them left. Most had died. Rumors were that they had been taken to Heliac Nine. She feared being captured by the military and taken to the research facility maintained by the military scientists. She’d heard horror stories, but no one knew what happened there for sure. The only thing they knew was that they knew nothing. That in and of itself spoke volumes.
“So.” Fallow sipped his alcohol. “My current favorite is the Dilly Dodger.”
Keva shook her head and sipped. She swallowed and stared at her glass in surprise. “This is delicious. What is it?”
“Something I make myself. I’m calling it Honey.”
“Just Honey.”
He lifted a shoulder. “It was something on Earth that tasted sweet, so I thought it was appropriate.”
He would. “Well, I like it.”
“Good.” Fallow flicked his eyes toward where Dottie waited.
Keva turned, and an older, undistinguished woman sat beside her, two larger men flanking her sides.
“They’ll go into the back room and be done fast.” Her voice was full and sounded young, despite her aged appearance. “You’ll be on your way soon.”
“What do you want in payment?”
The Ident’s blue eyes shifted down to Keva’s chip arm, and she shifted her jaw to the side in thought. “Your Elite chip.”
Kadira’s chip. That thing wasn’t worth keeping. Although, Finn and the Codex Syndicate might be pissed with her. They’d gone to a great deal of trouble to get it for her. “Agreed.”
“I will be back for you.” The Ident rose. “Not today, though. I have others to see.” She slowly meandered to the back.
Keva was a little disappointed that the old woman didn’t want to take it right then and there.
“Anyway,” Fallow said, regaining Keva’s attention. “Willow likes Solar Tide. Tallow is a bit more nostalgic and prefers Phoenix, but I think that’s a bit overkill for your tiny little station-hopper.”
She gave him a dark look. “She’s m
y little station-hopper.”
“Who needs a new name. Swallow likes Storm Flare.”
“That’s got potential.”
Fallow rolled his eyes. “You could go with Fleet Feet.”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“Running Raider.”
“You’ve been thinking way too hard on this.”
“Wormwood.”
“I’m not calling my ship a terran death box.”
“That’s not what wormwood means, Keve.”
“Then, what is it?”
He opened his blue lips, then closed them and took a sip of his honey. “I don’t know. It’s another one of those Earther things that got lost.”
She flared her eyes at him and took another sip. “I’ll ask ILO what she thinks,” Keva said her voice low.
Fallow leaned in, his expression filled with muted excitement. “That’s your AI.”
Keva raised her eyebrows in confirmation.
“And does she have an opinion?”
Keva leaned forward. “She wants to name it 10.10.100.”
He frowned and blinked his false lashes.
At least, she assumed they had to be false. No one's lashes were that long naturally. “It's binary code-speak for red.”
He tipped his head, his lips tight in question.
She realized she probably shouldn’t be telling him that ILO was sentient, but she’d already trusted him with other information that was equally as sensitive. “Because red is her favorite color.”
He pulled back a brilliant smile lighting his face. “Oh, Keva, Keva, Keva. You do continue to surprise. It’s settled. Red Roger.”
That was awful. “I don’t get it.”
He chuckled and craned his head on his neck. “The Jolly Roger was a pirate ship. Red is ILO’s favorite color, and you are a pirate ship.”
“I’m not exactly a pirate. We don’t board unsuspecting ships and steal their booty. Plus, seeing as how I’m not exactly legit, isn’t that a little telling?”
“Except who still remembers what people called pirate ships back in the Earth days? They aren’t classed the same anymore.”
Which was true. They had names like Rave’s Revenge, and Scream’s Machine.
“Maybe something a little more like me. Like Scarlet Harpy.
“But, for ILO,” he whispered with a wink, “I’ll call it the 101010.” He said, calling it ten-ten-ten.
“It’s ten-ten-one-hundred.”
“Whatever. It’s ones and zeros. She’ll get it. And ten-ten-ten sounds better.”
Except, Keva was pretty sure it meant a very different color. She sighed. At least they’d finally gotten rid of Ghost Star, which was a stupid name for a ship. “So, did you ever hear about what was going on in the asteroid belt the other day?”
Fallow released a long breath and pulled up a stool, sitting. “I’m worried, Keve.”
Keva’s heart stumbled with fear. “They can’t know I’m alive, Fallow. If they catch me, I’m going to Heliac Nine. And what they’ll do to me? No one that’s gone there has ever come back.”
“I know.” He put his hand over hers. “And that’s what worries me. Because there’s been no news. Whatever was going on, completely quiet. No chatter.”
Which was bad.
“You’re going to need a real tag on your face. We may even need to break your nose or reconstruct your face.”
That was something Keva needed to seriously consider.
“Just be careful, Keve. Please.”
She nodded and sipped her honey. “How is Swallow, anyway?” She changed the subject, not wanting to dwell on the fear leaching into her gut. She’d been able to hide for three long years. She’d survived longer than anyone else outside her pod who’d been spaced from the military.
Or, at least, those that she knew.
She couldn’t be found.
She couldn’t.
18
Fallow wasn’t dumb. He allowed Keva to sidestep him for a moment but brought the topic back up after filling her in on his brother’s latest black diamond enterprises. “Why’d you bring her here?”
It took Keva a minute to catch up. She’d been barely listening to Fallow in the first place. No one cared about diamonds, especially black ones and she didn’t believe Swallow was going to make black diamonds marketable. So, she tuned Fallow out and had been worrying about what the military had been up to. How had they been able to find her? Or was she over-worrying the matter?
But her face had been on the broadbands thanks to Ajian Memta.
Who out there would connect her face to the military? Who would have put the two together?
One of her remaining pod. Maybe. Last she knew, there were only two: Ritta and Tinga.
But Fallow was asking why she’d brought Dothy—Dottie with her. She stared into her glass of honey for a long moment. “Guilt.”
He leaned his elbows on the bar. “What over?”
“The first time I went to Terra Qar, I got Dottie’s sister killed. Not right away. She took my place in a marriage contract that was a death sentence. And then, after I saw how that family treated her… what he did to her—I realize I should be tougher. Hell, I'd be the first person to remind someone people are brutal beasts, that a woman can pimp herself to thirty guys to get a piece of bread to eat, and I should be calloused to all that.”
He blinked, then bowed his head. “I’m not following most of what you’re saying, but you caught Dottie in a similar marriage contract?”
What had Keva been thinking? Bringing Dottie out here? Ripping her away from that world into this one? When… fuck.
If the military was closing in on her, Keva’s lifespan was coming to an end. Who would protect her then?
Her face had been blasted on the broadbands—twice. It may not be her name, nor her identity tag, but Ritta and Tinga would know. All it would take was for one of them to stay on a screen for one second too long, and the Kalamatra AI would start digging.
Keva had messed up.
“And, apparently, I’m not getting the rest of the story from you.” Fallow gave her a tight smile to bring her back.
Fear, real fear pummeled her. “I’m in trouble, Fal.”
“I got that.”
She was quiet for a long moment before she shook her head. “After I got out of the military, I hooked up with someone who needed my skill set to track down information that was hard to get.”
“We figured that much.”
“One of those missions took me to Terra Qar where I took on the identity of Kadira Saqqaf.”
“I figured that one out, too.”
“I was there for almost a year, and in that time, I made one friend.”
“Your first friend since leaving the military.”
Keva hadn’t even realized how impactful that had been. She’d never had friends in the military. Yes, she had her podmates, but they could quickly turn on the people in their pod if they were unable to fight their chip. Odelle had been the first person in the universe to be kind to Keva.
“I know what that means, little one.” Fallow glanced around the bar, his blue lips pursed. “When we escaped the lab, we scattered. I met someone, a boy who took me in. Without him, I wouldn’t have made it.”
“What happened?”
“He died because I was stupid.”
Why was it always like that in the Black? “I got scared and ran. Ajian Memta held Kadira’s debts, and she sold Kadira into a marriage contract with the Zerveks.”
“Even we know what that means. The Zervek men go through wives almost once a year.”
“Exactly. With my background, I knew I would kill him if he attacked me, so I left. When I did, I failed my mission, gathered no information on the research I was sent to uncover, and Ajian Memta sold Odelle to Zervek in my stead.”
“Because she was your friend.”
“Likely.” She’d spent the last week running from one thing to the next and hadn’t given herself a cha
nce to deal. “So, when I went back to get information on that turned out to be the same damned research, I found Odelle’s sister sold to marriage to another Zervek.”
“And the guilt kicked in.”
Not immediately. What did that say about her? “I was going to leave her.”
“You said you were looking for information on a weapon?”
If the Codex Syndicate discovered she was leaking information to outsiders like Fallow, they’d kill her before the military had a chance. But if Batch D-65 was as powerful as Keva suspected, Fallow and his pod might be needed to get the word out to people. Keva didn’t think the Syndicate had taken that into consideration yet. “It’s bad, Fal. We don’t have all the information yet, but it has something to do with the mass disbursement of a DNA resequencing agent.”
“What?” All expression fell out of his face.
Keva nodded slowly.
“That’s definitely not good, Keve.”
“I know.”
“This could—it could wipe out entire settlements.”
“I know.”
“And you endangered the mission to save one girl. Why? Tell me it wasn’t only the guilt.”
No, but she was just as dumb for it. “I tasked her with planting a listening device on Zervek. She was marrying him, and it was convenient.”
He narrowed his eyes at her.
“That man made her lie there while his entire protective squad fucked her, Fal. And they weren’t gentle about it. He sat there and smirked. Then she planted the device on him while he slept like a sated asshole. She got herself dressed and passed out while trying to escape. I couldn’t…” Why did she feel stupid and vindicated at the same time? “I couldn’t leave her there. Saving her was the right thing to do and I… I need to the right thing. At least this once.”
“She could get you killed.”
Yeah. “She’s going to get me caught.”
Fallow licked his lips. “She is.”
Someone slipped onto the barstool beside her. “Got any more of that?” Hale asked, pointing to their glasses.
Fallow didn’t even blink. He just reached for another glass and poured one for the captain.
Hale glanced between the two of them. “Why the long faces?”
“She just filled me in.”