Eastlick and Other Stories

by Page, Shannon

  Or it would be end of shift and she would have stopped off for a ration of slivovitz in Frame Zero, the generic little bar on Deck 47 near her bunk bay, and he’d be in there, huddled at a small table talking to some officer she didn’t recognize. Not that Crew spent much time down here in work gang country.

  Or what happened today. She was all the way across Ship’s circumference, a full one-eighty from her usual workshift site, at the coreward edge of the habitable area where the passageways began running to anoxic atmospheres and the bulkheads carried exotic gas warnings in a multitude of languages and symbols, running an errand for her gang boss. Even the grav plates were wonky there—Loren had to watch every step, as the bad patches tended to accumulate a lot more dust. And she was lost; the numbers seemed scattered over here, half the hatches not even marked; the passageways didn’t follow the normal patterns. They bulged and shifted around to make room for the gardens hullward, but still, why did it have to be this complicated?

  Loren hefted the carryall of excess He-3 cartridges around to her other hip and sighed. Heavy: too heavy. She should have brought a waist pack, but she didn’t think she’d be carrying them so long. “Blasted things,” she muttered. The corner of the carryall dug into her side; the cartridges rattled against one another. Why couldn’t Gramma Francesca have sent a runner? She was a biomechanic: skilled far above this sort of makework.

  And then he was there. Not a haunting at all, but just about treading on her boots as she turned a blind corner.

  “Oh! I am sorry, sir.” She reeled back, nearly dropping the carryall, and felt her face flush. Had he heard her?

  “Citizen,” he said, his voice softer and somehow higher than she’d expected. “My fault: I wasn’t attending.”

  His accent was that of the highest echelons of senior Crew. This much, at least, she’d expected. His words, though… Far more polite than one of her class could ever expect from one of his class.

  The Captain would not take as Consort any other than a man of the highest rank, after all.

  “No, the fault is mine,” she murmured, and struggled to reposition the carryall, ease gracefully past him, not look him in the eye, and show proper respect all at once. As several of these actions were impossible to perform simultaneously, she managed only a hesitant step forward before he spoke again.

  “Citizen: your name, if you please?”

  “Loren 68. Sir.” With an uncharacteristic fit of compulsive honesty, she added, “Work gang Forty-Seven Charlie. Best gang in the decks, sir.”

  A small smile flickered across the officer’s face. “Citizen Loren, do you have a pass for this area?”

  She fumbled with the carryall again, then finally set it down at her feet. Holding out her left wristband, she blushed even further as she said, “Gramma Francesca gave me a thirty-minute override. But I’m lost…”

  He sniffed as he examined the blinking red light on the band. “Very well.” Then, taking her hand gently in his and turning it over, he tapped a code onto the tiny keypad at her wrist. The band beeped; the glow changed to green; delicious, startled shivers of craving and delight emanated up her arm from his casual touch. “There you are. Thirty more minutes. Your destination is that way.” He dropped her hand—nearly painful, the loss of contact!—and pointed ahead.

  “Thank you, sir, thank you!”

  “Carry on.” With that, he was gone, leaving her a whiff of his scent and a handful of wicked memories.

  ~o0o~

  Two shots of slivovitz down that night, and still sleep would not come. Haunted. After an hour of this, Loren sat up in her bunk and turned on the console, then pulled up the entertainment files. Old stories, she liked; the oldest, ones that took place on Earth.

  A planet she had never seen.

  A planet no one she knew had ever seen.

  You’d have to be nearly two centuries old to have any memories of Earth. And, while technically possible, people of that age were vanishingly rare. At least the sort of people she knew.

  The Consort probably knew Earthlings among the senior Crew…

  “Stop it,” she whispered, and continued searching through her files.

  A Regency romance: a tale of love and unattainability. A man of the highest station, one who is betrothed to a woman of his caste. A simple girl, humble, shy, making her way through the edges of someone else’s fairy tale. An accidental encounter, and then another; a brush of the arm; a casual exchange… Loren laughed at herself, but reread the story anyway, savoring every word.

  When she was finished, she wanted to weep.

  Of course, everything was backwards, just all wrong, here in the real world. Nothing like the stories. For it to be a true romance, the Consort should have offered to carry the carryall today, not sent Loren on her way with a sharp word.

  And she should be a stolen child of the aristocracy—a princess in disguise, or hidden, through some astonishing mix-up of fortune. Awaiting discovery of her rightful place … and the hand of her prince.

  But no. Loren was already in her rightful place, and lucky to have it. Her workshift was not onerous, her teammates were decent and engaging, and Gramma Francesca was a benevolent work gang boss. She’d heard stories, knew how it could be.

  So why did she feel as though her life was being wasted, one unendurable sliver at a time?

  ~o0o~

  Gram Keith, the overboss of the Deck 48 work gangs and convenor of all the decks from 45 to 52 in the three hundred series hullframes, had called a general meeting. “Hurry, Citizens, hurry!” Gramma Francesca marched down the bunking passageway, rapping on hatches with her wand, sending tiny jolts of Direction into everyone’s right-hand wristbands. “We’re starting in five minutes!”

  Loren tumbled out of bed and yanked on the suit she’d worn yesterday—no time to turn it in for a clean one—then splashed her face with water from the tiny sink at the foot of her bunk. She dried her hands on her hair, smoothing it down and tucking the excess into the suit’s collar. To much of a rush to find a ponytail holder either … a small act of rebellion, or merely independence, keeping her hair long. It was also a colossal pain in the ass, when it came to close work in the deep machinery where the grav plates were variable and the snag hazards multiplied.

  No matter. She wasn’t going to cut it.

  Her head pounding from the slivovitz, or perhaps just the lack of sleep, she grabbed a handful of Pain-Free from the passageway bin on her way out, chewing the chalky tablets as she hurried along with her bunkmates to the ramp leading to the next deck.

  “Late night?” Garen had fallen into step alongside Loren. Now he struggled to keep up with her long stride. She wasn’t going to make it any easier on him, either.

  “Why do you ask, Citizen?”

  He nodded at her hand, but it was empty now. So he’d been watching her. As usual.

  “You have dust at the corner of your mouth,” he said, after a pause that was just a bit too long.

  She wiped with the back of her hand, but found nothing. Who did he think he was fooling? “Thanks,” she said, giving him a look that said just the opposite.

  He sat next to her in the meeting. After she ignored several of his whispered remarks, he fell silent.

  Which allowed her to pay attention to Gram Keith, of course. As they were supposed to. Unfortunate that things should be so dull, but such was life.

  The bulk of the meeting was to go over the reordered workshift assignments. Loren listened carefully until her own number was mentioned. No changes there. Good.

  She was woolgathering again, letting her mind drift to … well, to hauntings, truth be told. Tall, slender, pale men appearing at the unexpected ends of passageways, empty service bays, a gentle brush on the inside of a wrist, all accidental—when she heard a sharp inbreath next to her.

  “What?” she whispered to Garen.

  The young man was bright-eyed, his face flushed. “I’m transferred, to your unit. Effective immediately.”

  Loren st
ared at him, her heart lurching. Not him. “But you don’t know anything about biomechanics.”

  “I’ll be support. It’s a way up, a way in. You know I’ve always wanted to do that kind of work.”

  Then they both jumped as Gramma Francesca sent a small jolt of Control to their wristbands. Quiet came through the line, the order emanating through Loren’s brain as if it was a thought of her own. Her mouth closed automatically and her attention returned to the announcements.

  ~o0o~

  If this were a romance, Garen would be a prince, fallen from his high station, unrecognizable in humble garb, manure on his shoes and a painful shyness masking his nobility. Loren would be yearning for the unattainable lord, all the while not seeing the even more fantastic man so close to hand.

  No: that would only be true if Garen were the hero of the romance. Not Loren.

  No: it could still be true, if Garen were not truly, utterly, miserably horrible. And if the Consort were not so unbelievably, thrillingly desirable.

  It could be no kind of romance that had Garen anywhere in it.

  Loren turned in her bunk once more, fussing at the covers. The thin blanket seemed too skimpy at times, and all too much at other times.

  Not the blanket’s fault, of course.

  And was Garen really so horrible? Truly?

  Yes, he was a pest; yes, he was manipulative and sneaky and weak-chinned and had an odd way of cocking his head when he was thinking … but did that make him impossible?

  Well, yes, it did. Garen was impossible. Loren knew that much, at least, from the romances: if you have to talk yourself into a man, you don’t want him.

  Finally giving up, Loren sat up and dialed another entertainment, a period virteo this time with glittering eye candy and wonderful set pieces. But even that failed to distract. Her mind kept returning to its hauntings … interspersed with terrifying images of spending every day with Garen, now that he had somehow maneuvered the transfer. The eager boy asking her endless questions, inserting himself into her every conversation, even—shudder—somehow arranging that she should be the one to train him.

  Oh, of course he would do that. He probably already had! She should apply for a change of workshift immediately. She would talk to Gramma Francesca first thing at lights-up. Anything—she’d transfer to anything. Even to an Outside work gang … though “dangerous” barely began to describe Outside work. Ship sailed through hard space, radiation sleeting across Her skin like scalpels waiting to sculpt an unlucky Citizen’s cells into monstrous assassins of the body.

  The story on the screen before her played on; Loren barely watched. Partway through, a figure caught her eye, and she gasped. Did a double take, then ran the transmission back to see it again.

  It couldn’t be.

  An actor in the ancient drama … he looked just like the Consort. Tall and slender and pale…

  No. It wasn’t him, of course; the dramas were made in the entertainment division, and actors were chosen from the general Citizenry, men and women and inters just like Loren. And Garen.

  General Citizens did not become Consorts to the Captain.

  Still, she looked at the scene several times before letting the drama run forward again. The tall actor had a minor role to play: cousin to the penniless heroine. He only appeared in one other scene, and in that one, he was clearly not the Consort.

  Of course he wasn’t.

  Because her life was not a romance. And the Consort was not for her. And if she didn’t choose to bond with Garen, or someone else like him, someone actually available to her, Loren would spend her life alone. She would not be able to apply for an upgrade to dual quarters; she would not be given celebratory rations of slivovitz every fourth cycle; she would not get to put on the white armband that signified pair-bonding and sometimes provided curfew waivers as well as sundry other benefits.

  She would not have anyone to talk to, late at night, when the chattering in her brain refused to die down.

  She would not ever understand what love felt like.

  Yet if the Consort was not for her, then why did he keep showing up, dangling himself in her line of vision, appearing everywhere she happened to be? Haunting her? Ship was enormous—tens of thousands of Citizens, many hundreds of the upper echelon. Loren had never seen the Captain or any of the senior Crew in the flesh. Only the Consort. Again and again. What were the odds of that?

  He was doing it somehow. He was sending her a message. He was powerful: he could do so with very little trouble. But he couldn’t do so openly. Not a man in his position. She was supposed to understand.

  Even in the entertainments she somehow chose to watch: why had those particular ones become available to her? Especially the one with the actor who looked just like the Consort?

  Of course Loren’s life was a romance—it had to be. And of course she was the heroine of it. Except she had understood it all wrong. She was not a classical heroine: rather, she was the hero. He was the captive, betrothed to the Captain, no doubt against his will. If she would not take charge, if she would not rescue him, then who would?

  By the time the entertainment ended, Loren had made her decision.

  ~o0o~

  She rose before lights-up and collected a clean suit from the rack at the end of the passageway, then stole back to her bunkroom and washed her entire body using the tiny sink. Likely nobody would be in the communal ’freshers at this hour; even so, she didn’t want to take a chance at being seen. At being asked questions.

  Instead of braiding her long hair or tucking it away as usual, Loren left it loose, brushing the strands out with her fingers. In the romances, the heroine had a hairbrush, with a silver handle and boar’s hair bristles. Here aboard Ship, in transit for generations, heroines had to make do without. There were no boars, nor silver, to start with. And with standard-issue jumpsuits and heavy black boots, when she really should be wearing gossamer gowns and dainty golden sandals…

  “Right,” she whispered, easing one last tangle from her hair. “And while I’m at it, I might as well wish for a walk in the woods. And a pony.”

  If they had woods.

  Or ponies.

  Though of course, if she was the hero, she should have a sword and a suit of armor. Equally impossible. As a biomechanic, at least she could grow a pony.

  Carrying her boots until she’d left the sleeping area, Loren made it out without waking anyone. Or so she hoped, anyway.

  She didn’t begin breathing easier until she’d reached the high-speed lifts at Hullframe 341, out of her range but not actually a forbidden area. Holding up her left armband to the console, she punched in the override code that Gramma Francesca most usually used to release the workers for temporary assignments. Citizens were not supposed to know these codes, but everyone did. Gang bosses were expected to change them regularly, but the hassle involved was just too much.

  So long as everyone kept quiet and didn’t steal too much from the stores, everything worked out just fine.

  Loren hoped she wasn’t knocking over the entire system right now … but if she was—so be it. She’d pay the price later, and hope the trouble would be worth it.

  The high-speed lift beeped in response to her override code. Doors opened with a whoosh and a clank. The engineering part of Loren’s brain noted the clank and was already diagnosing probable cause and likely repair strategies before the part that was in charge at the moment took over.

  “No dice, princess,” she whispered to herself as the doors closed her into the lift. “This goes well, you’ll never repair another lift again.”

  ~o0o~

  The hullward decks were unlike anything she’d ever seen before. Loren knew how Ship was laid out; everyone had seen schematics all their lives, and with her biomechanic’s engineering training, she understood better than most how the structure was held together.

  The beauty of it struck her most. Wide, sweeping open spaces overhead, tied to one another by the thinnest spans of gleaming gossamer-spun ti
tanium while their glittering crystalline panels provided a view of the stars outside. Multideck spans of bulkhead covered in what had to be merely decorative greenery. The very air scented fresh as if it had not roiled through a million lungs before hers. The long views down to coreward levels unthinkably lower, farther away, demonstrating the grand scale of Ship. Even the color scheme on bulkheads and panels and informational signage was different up here in hullward country: contrasting mauve and a deep green, a combination that somehow conveyed both comfort and majesty. Yes, it was true: Crew really did have it better than the Citizenry.

  How pleasant it would be to live up here!

  After a minute, Loren realized she had no idea where to go next.

  The Captain dwelled at the top hullward level, along the outer hull: everyone knew that. But where? There weren’t even hatches up here, much less numbered ones—assuming Loren would know what number to look for.

  She had thought it would be obvious. In the virteo romances, the powerful always had red carpets, brazen trumpets, massive doorways. Nothing at all was obvious, though. Loren wandered down a long balcony, stealing glances over the elegant, too-thin rail to the unfathomable depths below, trying to figure out where the center was. The balcony ended in a set of passageways fanning out in a pattern of spokes. She hesitated, then chose the middle way and kept on. Here there were hatches, at least, but they were still not numbered, not labeled.

  No signage at all. She could think of several safety code write-ups from that.

  Where was everyone? It was quiet, too quiet. Did no one live here at all? Was the whole notion of a Captain and a Bridge just a hoax? Ship was vast, and contained multitudes. Right now, anything seemed possible.

  Was the Consort a myth, too? No, he was real. A haunting, and so very, very real.

  So where were all the people who should be up here?

  That question was answered a moment later, when two guards rounded the corner, bored expressions on their faces.

  “Citizen,” the woman said, her eyes snapping into focus a moment quicker than the male guard’s did.