by Baen Books
“Garrity,” someone said. Medith thought it was Pyotr. “You’re needed.” Garrity nodded to her with a sort of a come-if-you-want look to his original-issue non-cyborg eye, and went back out into the open air. So she followed him, stopping in mild perplexity as she took in the scene.
Three people sitting on the ground looking downcast, yes. But another person on the ground a little removed, that made four; she hadn’t expected that. And everybody was taking their shoes off. That was a little weird. Pyotr had stopped in front of the three men on the ground and folded his arms.
“Here’s the deal,” Pyotr said. She’d been told to report to “Chief” Stildyne, and “Chief” was clearly the coordinator, but it was more of a spokesman thing as far as she could tell. “You’ve been sitting in our cargo bay waiting for your chance. Port Authority says you’ve got somebody sneaking access to loading manifest, so you can steal the best stuff.”
Loading manifest? Her loading manifest? Riggs frowned. Nobody had any business with her documentation except her, and she took precautions. So her flat-file docket itself had been corrupted. That was bad. But Pyotr said he’d heard that from the Port Authority, so that was good. But nobody had told her: so that was bad, again.
Nobody on the ground was saying anything. One of them put his boots on the side at arm’s length, clearly in response to an instruction given before she’d gotten out here to hear it; “Yeah, down to the skin,” one of the crew said—Robert, she thought—and the man began to strip off his boot-stockings, reluctantly. What was that about?
“And Port Authority knows something you don’t know. About us. About me.” Pyotr clearly hadn’t expected any response, because he was still talking. Medith could appreciate that, though. Pyotr was a substantial piece of work, maximum intimidation in effect. Scaltskarmell. There weren’t any people with complexions that color among the Nurail lineages: he was as dark-skinned as hominids came.
“So let’s talk about me. My name’s Pyotr Micmac. Until recently, bond-involuntary Security assigned, Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok. Do any of you pathetic excuses for local muscle know what that means?”
This was a question direct. One of them answered. “So what?” he said. “Inquisitors, yeah. This is Gonebeyond. You’re saying we’re supposed to be scared, because you used to be with Andrej Koscuisko?”
There were some vague stirrings of recognition in the back of Medith’s mind, but they weren’t very well defined. Bond-involuntaries: Security slaves, with governors in their brains, because otherwise you couldn’t find enough people who’d serve an Inquisitor of their own free will. Thirty-year term of enslavement. Immediate and ferocious punishment for the slightest infraction. Andrej Koscuisko, and the Domitt Prison.
“No,” Pyotr said, leaning forward to loom over the speaker. Medith was impressed by the menace Pyotr communicated with just the word, and she wasn’t the one facing him. “I’m saying you should realize that we know how to hurt people. We know how to hurt people really, really convincingly. And we will, too, because you annoy us, ask me why.”
At this moment Medith almost would, just to take the edge off the apprehension she felt by proxy. Fortunately for her—she told herself—one of the three of them said it for her.
“Sure, Jack,” the man with the now-bare feet said. “Why?”
“Glad you asked.” Pyotr unfolded his arms, and he made it scary, too. Hands on hips, now. “I knew a man who was put under Bond for just this sort of stupid stuff. You’re not under Bond. Nobody’s torturing you to death. Nobody’s making you torture anybody, except maybe you, your breath could be weaponized. That makes me really, really angry. Because I remember Lipkie Bederico. We were under Captain Lowden together.”
Now the curly-headed one, standing together with the other two of them behind the three men on the ground, raised his voice. Hirsel, that was. She’d been introduced, but since none of them talked much they didn’t say each others’ names and she wasn’t as sure about that detail as she would’ve liked to have been.
“So me, I’d be perfectly happy to take it out on you,” Hirsel said. “Angry, that is. There’s only one reason you’re not leaving here in bitty bloody pieces. Nothing to do with the Port Authority. Don’t get me wrong.”
And now Godsalt. Garrity had talked himself out, clearly. He’d changed places with Chief, going to stand with—Robert?—guarding the single person who’d been pulled out, and was sitting alone. The one Medith hadn’t known about. The youngest of the bunch, she thought.
Chief when he joined Medith near the warehouse bay didn’t look much disarranged to Medith, hardly even breathing heavily. She didn’t think he’d as much as broken sweat.
“No, the Port Authority’s done you a favor,” Godsalt said. “Asked us to look out for people like you and turn you over. We’ve talked. We’ve decided. Maybe someone could have let Lipkie run. Then what happened to him wouldn’t have, maybe. So we’re letting you run. Except. Barefoot. We keep your shoes, just because we can. Maybe you cut your little pink feet. Maybe you think about what could happen next time. Especially if you get caught by the wrong crew. Yeah?”
Not what Chief had planned, Medith thought, suddenly. Chief would have turned them over. Chief was deferring. That was interesting. What did it mean? Had he been “Chief,” like “Security Chief?” She wasn’t sure she could see why he’d be here, if that was so. Bond-involuntaries in Gonebeyond, well, if they could get out, it’d be the only place they could really go, wouldn’t it?
But how could they have gotten out? Governors. Everybody had heard about them. Little spider-intelligences in a person’s brain, and if you even thought about violating your instructions, you’d be lucky if you never remembered the agony the governor would inflict in punishment.
“I’d rather go with the Port Authority than listen to you flap at me,” one of the others said, resentfully. Not getting the message, Medith thought. Or maybe just not liking it. None of the crew seemed to find it particularly worth noticing. “What about that kid? He’s nothing to do with us. So you should have no problem with him. He walks. With his shoes on.”
“That kid,” the one by himself. He’d taken off his shoes, but he had a kit back there, too. Beside him. Medith saw the crew look at each other, passing eye-contact; passing something else, maybe? She’d wondered if it was her imagination that people had twitchy fingers. Maybe it still was. Maybe there was some communication going on.
“Okay,” Pyotr said, one hand to his face now, fingers crooked over his mouth like people on the vids when they were supposed to be thoughtful people weighing arguments. “For that you get your shoes back. So long as you run out of here before you put them on. Get out. We don’t know when the port’s sending security, but we don’t think it’s very long now.”
It took a moment before the men on the ground appeared to grasp what Pyotr was saying, not because they weren’t as smart as the next sneak-thief, but because it was unexpected. Once the message sank in, though, nobody waited. Gone. There’d be no particular problem running across the tarmac, Medith supposed. But the pavement outside, that was all gravel. That would hurt.
And once they were gone Robert nudged the one that was left with his foot. “As for you,” Robert said. Robert looked Nurail to Medith, but that was maybe just because she was Nurail and had been raised in a Nurail community and people tended to look Nurail to her anyway. If he was Nurail he’d be Rabin, not Robert. If he was, if he’d been, bond-involuntary, though, Fleet could have called him Constanza or Stucco Wall or whatever they liked, and he’d have had to answer to it. “What’s your story?”
“I’ve got to get out,” the man on the ground said. Yes, young. Very. Maybe a boy yet, but what did that matter? “Thought I’d stow away. Almost made it, didn’t I? If the Port Authority takes me home, my da will kill me. If they don’t he’ll find me and kill me anyway.”
Well, that sort of talk was just what a person would expect from a kid, over-dramatizing, world revolving around
him, and so forth. “So your dad did that to you,” Robert said, as Garrity pulled the man to his feet. Maybe there was something about it that Medith couldn’t see from this distance. “So you’re clearly not too young to find your own way around it. How old are you?”
“I’m legal.” That was a sullen insistence, but a little resigned, a little hopeless. “I’ve got papers to prove it. Let me go. I won’t try it again. I promise.”
Chief moved his feet. Just a little. Hardly more than taking a deep breath. But the others noticed, Medith was sure they did. “How do you plan to feed yourself at Langsarik Station?” Robert asked. “You’ve got money? I somehow didn’t think so, so, what’s your plan?” Robert glanced over to where Chief was standing with Medith. “Hopeless, Chief. Doomed to failure. Not our problem.”
He didn’t mean it. He was waiting. He was going to have Chief make the call. Medith recognized it, suddenly: Nurail humor. Serious humor, in this instance, but she could practically smell the joke in the air. Chief had been Security chief. What he was doing here Medith still didn’t know, but Chief was Chief Warrant Officer, these men were refugee bond-involuntary Security slaves, and Robert was going to make Chief Stildyne say the word, just because that had been his job.
“You’ll scrub the galley,” Chief said. “And the lavs. After the galley. Do a good job and maybe we cut you loose with scut-worker salary. Put your shoes on. Keep your mouth shut when you muster for the Port Authority, Riggs, let’s call it incidental labor, that’s about all it’s worth, isn’t it?”
For an instant she was tempted to say oh, we won’t call it anything, just this once. But she had her code of duty. And Chief was right: declaring an additional incidental laborer wouldn’t add enough to the total tariffs and fees to even almost notice. “I’m good,” she agreed. “Only we’d all look better if the cargo bay was back to schematic by the time the clearance agent gets here. I know who’s on shift, I think. The cleaner we look the less likely there’ll be any questions.”
But they knew that. And they were already heading back into the cargo hold. The would-be stowaway was fastening his shoes as quick as he could, and ran up after them as soon as he could manage—wanting to help, maybe. He’d just be in the way. Maybe they wouldn’t point that out to him.
“Was a time I had to get away,” Chief said. It was just the two of them, now, she and him. “Not like that kid, no. But I’m not in a position to tell anybody to clean the lavs.”
Nothing she’d seen of this crew would indicate that the galley, and the lavs, weren’t cleaner than many and completely up to code. Now she had a better idea why: these were professional military men, and maybe the standards of this particular crew had been set at higher than most.
She wasn’t going to argue. It wasn’t her place. Also, she kind of agreed with the group decision. “Wonder if he can make cavene,” Medith said. “And I’ll just be doing final inspection, when you’re ready.”
If Esfrans gave her any trouble she’d slap him silly, and the crew would pay the tariffs she established, and that would be all there was to it. If she never came back to Wilmot Station it’d be no particular loss.
###
Lek Kerenko was deeply grateful that someone else had made the cavene, because he was fairly sure his plumbing wouldn’t take many more days in a row of Garrity’s approach. The only thing that had saved him from a total collapse had been someone’s wrangling twice as much dairy as a growing boy would normally go through in a month, and it was good dairy, too, actual dairy dairy—not dairy equivalent.
It didn’t taste like good Sarvaw cow’s-milk, but there weren’t any Sarvaw cows in Gonebeyond that he knew of, and he’d been doing without the good stuff for years now anyway. It wasn’t standard issue on the Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok. The officer’s household had served him the best of Aznir high-fat cream for his cavene when he’d accompanied Koscuisko home on holiday, the once; he’d been a little worried that it might give him hives—since he was Sarvaw—but he’d survived the experience. He’d forced himself to repeat it as often as he’d dared during that downstay, because he’d been fairly sure he’d never have a chance like that again.
Now he sipped his cavene carefully—he’d developed a conditioned protective reflex during their lay-over at Wilmot—and found himself a place on the bench in the narrow cramped common-room on the freighter-courier Bammers to take his mid-meal. Bammers hadn’t been built for a full crew of Security; the benches were just a little short, but Robert being youngest found himself a place sitting on a stores-locker and Chief just leaned up against the wall.
It was a good practice to take at least one meal together. He found himself getting a little anxious if he was too much alone. “So,” Pyotr said to his bread-fold, both elbows on the table. Complete violation of protocol, which was the point, of course. Also maybe Pyotr had just grown up putting his elbows on the table. “How old were you when you ran away from home, Chief?”
It was a personal question. They asked a lot of personal questions, these days; because they could. There were a lot of inquiries in queue, after all those years of never asking anything about each others’ personal lives, and what was the worst that could happen? A fist-fight. That hadn’t happened yet. All of those years under Bond they’d had each other, only each other, whether they liked each other or not; that part hadn’t changed.
“Nunya,” Chief said, after taking a contemplative moment to swallow. None of your business. “Trade you for the first hot shower, when we get to Langsarik Station.”
There were Malcontents at Langsarik Station, Dolgorukij slaves of the Saint, the secret service of the Holy Mother’s church, “cousins” one and all. The officer’s blood-cousin Stanoczk had arranged a Sarvaw pilot from Langsarik Station to take them from Emandis Station into Gonebeyond, and Malcontents at Langsarik Station had been their primary interface with life in the new world ever since. Chief—Stildyne—had an understanding with Cousin Stanoczk.
Pyotr nodded. Chief looked at the half-eaten bread-fold in his hand. Asking about peoples’ pasts was one of the biggest taboos there was, among bond-involuntaries. “Sixteen years Standard, I think,” Chief said. As old as Robert, then, Lek thought, startled. But they weren’t supposed to know that. “I was big for my age, and tough enough for Fleet. They marked me down for eighteen, no questions asked.”
He’d passed for older more successfully than the stowaway currently cleaning the lavs, then. That was what had put the question in Pyotr’s mind, naturally; it wasn’t that anybody was eavesdropping, not on purpose, but when your Chief said anything it was good survival practice to be sure you heard what he was saying. Even when you didn’t hear anything at all, not officially. “Same reason?” Godsalt asked. “You can have first crack at the laundry, too.”
In case he wanted to get pretty, in case Cousin Stanoczk was there. It had to be lonely for Stildyne, all these weeks without Koscuisko in the back of his mind. Not that Koscuisko wasn’t in the back of Stildyne’s mind, whether or not they’d ever see him again. Stildyne took another bite of his bread-fold and chewed it down before he answered.
“He never laid a hand on me,” Stildyne said. “Not once I got old enough to hit back. That’s when I went street. But someone came running to me about my sister, and I went back. After that. Stuffed some rags in a bag I stole from someone to make it look like I had something more than just the clothes on my back, and reported to the nearest recruiting office.”
And Lek was sorry Pyotr had asked. On a psychological trauma scale of zero to bond-involuntary it didn’t slide up much past half-way, though; and of course Stildyne owed them, for past misbehaviors. But that was just a technical issue.
He’d been no worse than many and maybe even a little better than most, because Stildyne had always been a practical man who took his responsibilities to keep the equipment in good working order seriously—that was them, bond-involuntaries, instruments of torture. Then Koscuisko had happened. That had been good for all them
, the Bonds. For Stildyne there’d been challenges.
Pyotr looked down at his plate, the second—uneaten—bread-fold; and sighed. Picking it up in one hand he eased himself up and away from the table, which was one of Pyotr’s better tricks, close as the quarters were around here. “Well, all right, then,” he said, and tore the bread-fold in two between his fingers, holding out half for Stildyne to take. “I’d better go check the vector spins. Lek worries.”
But Pyotr didn’t leave. He waited, watching Stildyne examine the half-a-bread-fold in his hand. Stildyne took a bite, and a sip of cavene to wash it down. Then, and only then, Pyotr turned, and went away.
“Any chance of an invite to that Daigule’s house for dinner, Lek?” Robert asked, just to break the tension, Lek knew. “Because. Dumplings.”
Kazmer Daigule—their pilot from Emandis into Gonebeyond—was as Sarvaw as Lek was, and an important man in the Langsarik Port Authority. Married to the cousin of the Provost Marshall himself, Flag Captain Walton Agenis’ own niece. She made soft-curd sour cheese dumplings to dream on, and her not even Sarvaw at all, except by marriage.
“You’re dreaming,” Lek said. “That was a one-off.” Although if they were ever invited to the Modice Agenis household again he hoped they wouldn’t all sit there like bond-involuntary security troops assigned, incapable of all but the most rudimentary conversation. It had been too soon, the last time. A man could hope for a second chance, even if the only reason they’d had a first one was that Cousin Stanoczk and Kazmer Daigule knew each other. “Marry your own bride. Then you can ask for the recipe. Wedding-present.”
Things had gotten a little serious around here, and needed setting back to neutral. Stildyne was finishing the half-a-bread-fold Pyotr had given him, whether he wanted it or not. Lek got up. “Garrity will be missing his meal.” Riggs as well, and the stow-away. “I’ll go call them in for bread-folds.”