by C. Gockel
Reggie looked up with a start.
“Answer,” James whispered.
Reggie opened the channel. James’s jaw shifted, and he wanted to say, “The commander cares about your children. I don’t,” but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. If Noa found out … instead he said, “I’ll be listening.”
Reggie looked down. “Right,” he said aloud.
“Come on,” Noa said, swinging a duffel over her shoulder and backing away from Reggie, keeping her phaser aimed at Reggie's head the whole time.
Over the ether, James commanded, “Be good, Reggie.”
Reggie sucked in a breath.
Louder bangs sounded at the door.
“Open up in there! Open up!”
James moved over to a shelf of cheeses. Looking at Reggie, he said, “This one?”
The man nodded.
James pulled on one side of the shelf and it opened like a door, revealing a piece of the same plastic that made the plastitubes shaped like a long gash from the floor to the ceiling. There was a circular metal portion. Noa depressed a button in the wall and the circular portion opened with a hiss and pulled outward until there was just enough room for one person to slip through. Noa disappeared into the opening and James followed, closing the shelf behind him. For a moment he was blind, and he focused on following Noa by her footsteps.
Above their heads a crash sounded.
Noa whispered, “Battering ram.” Her voice sounded odd.
He blinked, waiting for his eyes to adjust. He saw dim directional lighting on the floor. The tiny pools of light at his feet disturbed his augmented vision. If he looked down, and then up too quickly, he’d go blind again … but he had to look down because the floor was rough … and up to keep from bumping his head. Noa didn’t appear to be having any trouble. She glided over the rough stones, dipping beneath low overhangs with graceful movements. Water dripped, and the air was thin in the cold tunnel. He cradled Carl Sagan’s weight with an arm. Even through the shirt and coat James wore, the werfle was warm. He was hungry again but didn’t want the rustle of an S-ration or the grinding of his jaws to keep him from hearing anyone behind them. He was so busy listening in that he bumped into Noa.
“Ladder’s here.” Her voice sounded strange and muffled.
He could see nothing. But he felt her duffel brush against him as she climbed and felt a chill in her wake. James readjusted his duffels and began to climb. A few minutes later, he heard the scrape of metal, then saw a flash of light and a wavering shadow. Noa was slipping from the passage into the light, he realized. Noa’s voice rang true in his ears this time. “You’re not wearing your mask.”
“Mask?” he said, still blind and trying not to let it show.
“Your CO2 converter,” Noa said.
His apps started calculating the oxygen in the tunnel, and the time they’d been in it. Eight minutes. Too long. He moved up another rung; he felt warm air as his head poked above the surface. He tried to take another step up, and promptly got stuck.
“Hand me your duffel. The exit is too narrow.” Her mind reached out to him, too. “Are you alright?” She sent a mental projection, and he could see what she could see: his head sticking out of a hole in pavement, his eyes looking at a point in her shoulder instead of right at her.
“I think that you are experiencing oxygen loss,” she said into his mind.
“I’m fine,” he grumbled, eyes finally adjusting. He slipped down, handed her the duffel bags, and climbed out of what appeared to be a sort of manhole. “Just hungry.” The warm air of the red light district wrapped around him like a blanket.
“Hungry?” Noa said. And he knew it was ridiculous. He’d just eaten a wheel of brie.
But then she said, “Carl Sagan, is he alright?”
From James’s shirt came a tired sounding squeak, but the werfle didn’t struggle.
“Hang in there, little guy,” Noa whispered, putting a circular plastitubing cover over their exit.
James stretched in the warm air, his hunger oddly abating. He swung his duffel bags over his shoulder.
“Hello?” someone called in a singsong voice. “Where did ja come from?”
James looked down the narrow dead-end alley. One side appeared to be a building, the other naked asteroid rock. The ceiling was rock, too. At the end of the alley a man was wavering on his feet. Lights shone behind him.
“Come on,” Noa said, taking a light hood out of the collar of her jacket and pulling it over her face. “Let’s go.”
Doing likewise, he followed her to the intersection. Noa peeked in the direction of Boss’s bar. “Doesn’t seem to be a commotion,” she said.
“Yet,” said James. Her jaw was hard, but she showed no sign of nervousness or fear. And then her eyes got a far-off look, as though she was hearing a distant sound. She was communicating over the ether. He knew he shouldn’t, but James focused, heard static, and then Ghost’s voice. “Commander, I heard you send your final directives to Manuel, and your goodbye to Mr. Sinclair.”
Noa scowled. “Listening in, Ghost?”
“Yes. This isn’t the ethernet—it’s the Ark’s much less robust local ether, and frankly I need to stay on top of all signals going in and out at the moment,” the man snapped back. “I’m glad you’re still alive, and apparently under less stress than you were a few moments before … you need to get back to the ship.”
Noa responded, “James is fine, thanks for asking, Ghost. And we’re working on getting back to the ship. But situations are tense here, so I need to focus. Signing off.”
The ether died and a frisson of tension James hadn’t realized was there vanished from his spine. For a moment, he thought they were about to be rational and return immediately to the ship. And then the frisson returned. He eyed her sideways and prompted gently, “It would be more rational to go back to the ship now …”
Noa narrowed her eyes at a point in the distance.
He almost sighed. “… but which way do we go to try and find Gunny?”
“This way,” said Noa. Stepping out of the intersection, she led him in the direction opposite the way they came, at a steady but determined pace. Keeping her hood low, at the first door she asked the bouncer if he’d seen a man who fit Gunny’s description. After a bribe of an S-ration, he pointed further down the crowded narrow street and gave some directions.
Continuing on their way, cradling her wrist against her stomach, she hissed, “Ghost expects me to leave him behind. Can you believe he’d even ask?”
He could believe Ghost might think that. Drawing his own hood as far down over his eyes as it would go, James said, “Well, for a while back there I almost thought you’d left me.”
“What?” said Noa, drawing to a halt.
James stopped. She was looking up at him, and the hood had fallen back so it no longer hid her distinct dark features. Her lips were parted, her eyes wide, and her brows were drawn together.
“You really thought …” She didn’t finish, just stared at him a beat too long. And then, shaking her head, she began walking again at twice the speed as before. She reached up and wiped her face with her sleeve.
“I can’t believe …” she muttered, but didn’t finish the thought. She kept her head bowed and her face turned away.
He smelled the tang of salt. It took him several moments to process that it was from tears. Noa hadn’t cried when she was trying to escape a prison camp, nor when they were running for their lives on Luddeccea’s home world, or—he glanced down at the wrist he was sure was injured more than she let on—when she’d gotten hit by a phaser.
She wiped her eyes, not looking at him. But she was crying now. The only other time she’d cried in front of him was when he’d convinced her not to “rescue” Kenji from his apartment. James felt a black dread at the edges of his consciousness; his mistrust had hurt her more than fear of death or physical pain.
They came to the intersection the bouncer had indicated. Noa stopped and looked around
the corner. It was another narrow passageway but set between two buildings. There were a few doorways with banners advertising lodging, refreshments, and “relaxation” above them. There was also, according to a map of the city James had in his apps, a stairwell at the end of it that would take them up to a passageway just outside the docks.
Concentrated shouts and murmurs made him look back the way they’d come. Outside of Boss’s “joint” there was a crowd milling. Curious people on the street were moving in that direction.
Ghost’s voice cracked over the ether again. “Commander, Adam’s Station’s Security knows you’re down there now. You’ve got to hurry!”
“We’ll be right there,” Noa replied to Ghost. To James she said, “The bouncer said he’s at that place.” She indicated one of the bars down the alley in the direction of the stairway.
It was conveniently on the way out. James’s augmented hearing picked up another voice a few paces down the main thoroughfare.
James caught her shoulder. She turned and glared up at him, eyes still wet.
“He’s not there, Noa,” James said.
“But the man said—”
“I hear Gunny.” Touching an ear, James canted his head toward a doorway on the main thoroughfare. “That way.” His jaw shifted. He had to make things hard for himself?
Noa’s eyes immediately went soft. He heard her swallow. She reached to him through the ether. “For a moment, I thought maybe you didn’t care.”
He didn’t care. Not about Gunny, anyway.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Right,” said Noa, hopping sprightly in the direction James had indicated. Down the street, James caught a couple of faces outside Boss’s joint turning to watch.
Chapter Ten
Gunny was sitting at a battered booth, raising a glass of piss-yellow liquid in a jar with a few locals who appeared just as in their cups. His shirt was untucked and his rather large girth was peeking out from beneath. He was singing along with a man holding a microphone, strangely in key:
“We sent our probes out into the dark,
Hoping ours was not an uncommon part,
But the probes came back, and we found out
We are alone in the black, alone in the black …”
One of the members of the group belched in time with the final verse and they nearly fell off their seats from laughing.
Noa’s heart fell as she walked toward them. When she’d been in Boss’s place and seen the man who’d she’d at first thought was Gunny, the first thought to enter her mind was that he’d been drugged. Gunny was too smart, too experienced, to get drunk on a mission. But now—
“Commnnanderrrrr!” Gunny slurred, getting to his feet. “I have interrogated these gentlemen—”
“Most strenuously!” one said.
The other sang softly to himself, “Alone in the night, have to make our own light.”
“Most stren-u-lousely,” Gunny slurred. “And they haven’t seen Kuin and Jun.” He gave a solute with the glass jar in his hand. The remainder of the liquid sloshed out onto his hair. Gunny swayed on his feet, looking confused.
“We have to go,” James said behind her.
Remembering the crowd outside, Noa looked around the bar. There was no sign of an emergency exit. Gesturing with her thumb toward the door, Noa said, “March, soldier.”
Gunny took a few steps and began to sway.
Growling, James swooped by her. “We have no time for this.” Gunny was slung over his shoulder a moment later.
“Whoa, big guy, usually I prefer a bit more romancing before I—” he belched, “—get thrown over anyone’s shoulder. Also, I might throw up.”
Noa thought she might throw up, too. Gunny reeked. She looked at James and in their secret cipher spoke across the ether. “Sorry.”
James just hunkered toward the door. He was carrying Gunny, two duffels, and a still unconscious Carl Sagan in his shirt. He was always taking on the burden of her less than brilliant plans.
He drew to a halt just before stepping outside. “Damn,” he said over the ether. And then he growled and readjusted a duffel. “Do I really need to carry all of these? It’s awkward, and we’re going to need to run.” Noa poked her head around his frame and saw that someone down the street was gesturing in their direction.
“Just go, I have a plan,” Noa said.
James’s eyes slid to her. His avatar rose in her mind and smiled wryly. “Of course you do,” the real James said, his face expressionless.
“Hopefully it won’t involve you carrying any more of my half-baked ideas,” Noa said.
“It is awkward,” James said, his gaze too heavy. “But not too heavy.”
She slipped her knife out of her pocket and nodded toward the door. “Are you speaking in allegories to confuse a poor, uneducated colonist, Professor?” It was a weak joke but all she had at the moment.
“You know the meaning of the word 'allegory'?” James said as they stepped through the main thoroughfare. “I’m shocked, Luddeccean.” He winked at her and she knew he wasn’t.
Behind them Noa heard the crowd rising.
“Stop flirting!” Gunny interjected. “There’s a lynch mob behind us!”
“There they are,” someone said.
“Also, I’m going to throw up,” Gunny added.
Behind her in the crowd, she heard “Throwbacks,” “Luddy,” “Reward,” and then, “Security forces, out of the way!”
“Should I run now?” said James.
“No!” said Noa. “Hold still.”
“Please, God, no!” Gunny moaned. “No running.”
Noa slit one of the duffels on James’s back from top to bottom, spilling the S-rations on the ground. At the top of her lungs, she shouted, “Free Grub! Come and get it!”
The effect was immediate. People started pouring out of doorways and alleys. There were people dressed in rags, prostitutes in cheap finery, business people in real finery, workmen, and more. The bouncer she’d talked to about Gunny leaped off his stool and came plowing through the others. The security personnel were completely cut off.
“Now we run!” she said.
“No!” shrieked Gunny.
James ignored him. They rushed down the main thoroughfare, Noa’s duffel and James’s remaining duffel still in tow. Noa reached out to James through the ether and silently communicated their path. They passed the narrow alleyway they’d nearly gone down before, sprinted a block or two more, and then turned down another alley and entered an unmarked door—in their minds it was demarcated as a stairway to a dock inspection station. Going through inspection was going to be a lizzar and a half, but there was no way around it …
She blinked. What should be an entrance to a stairwell was a tiny, empty chamber not much larger than a closet. The walls were a slightly worn pink velvet. The only exit seemed to be a door draped with beads.
She looked at James; he looked at her. She shrugged and stepped through the beads into a space with more crushed velvet walls, curtains galore and women and men in cheap satins and laces, and a lot of makeup. For a moment no one said anything. James’s eyes slid to Noa’s again, one of his eyebrows lifted, and then Gunny, still on James’s back, belched and bellowed, “Howdy, ladies!”
A lean, bare-chested human male in eyeliner stepped forward, eyes scanning James’s body. “Welcome to Lucky Chance, the only all-human bordello on Adam’s Station. How may I be of service?”
“Is this the stairwell to the dock?” James asked.
It hit Noa in an instant. “A bordello in the stairwell—a brilliant business move!” she said before she’d realized she’d said it aloud and not merely thought it. Her eyes slid around the room—but which curtain was the doorway behind?
The man smiled. “I like to think so. Technically against regulations, but the inspectors are easy to pay off.”
Someone snickered. The man winked.
Outside the bordello Noa heard shouts, and “check all exits!”
“We can pay you in S-rations,” Noa said, slipping her duffel off and showing the man the contents.
There were gasps around the room.
Eyes widening, he said, “Right this way, Sweet Hearts!” Flicking a hand to the women in the room, he said, “Keep Security occupied!”
They rounded a corner and passed behind a curtain into a dark room beyond. “Aww … are we leaving so soon?” Gunny hiccuped.
“Shh!” James hissed.
Gunny snored in response.
There were the sounds of crashing feet behind them. Someone said, “Hello, Soldiers! You know how much we love men in uniform!”
“Out of our way! We’re checking the stairs.”
Noa stiffened. But their guide put a finger to his lips. He stopped at another curtain and whispered, “Do you want to go to the inspection station? Or inside the dock?”
Noa blinked. James said, “You can get us inside the dock?”
“Sure, this way,” he said. He guided them behind another curtain to a room where a woman was stripping sheets from a bed.
The man turned to James and Noa and said, “All human and extremely clean … if you are passing this way again.”
James’s jaw shifted at the proprietor’s gaze.
Unable to read him, Noa couldn’t help but reach through the ether. “Are you laughing?”
James’s thoughts snapped across the channel. “No!”
“No need to get insulted by the attention—I think he’s kind of cute,” Noa said.
Gunny abruptly woke up. “I think I’m goin’ to throw up,” he said again.
James’s head darted too quickly in Noa’s direction, and his eyes narrowed. She decided not to press her luck. To the proprietor, she said, “We’ll keep your place in mind.”
And then, Ghost’s voice erupted in her brain. “Commander, we have problems here.”
“Coming, Ghost,” she said. “I don’t suppose Manuel has the time band and fuses ready?”
“I’m helping him to finish installing all the new fuses right now!” Ghost said. “Hurry!”