Orbital Burn

by K. A. Bedford

  Lou stared hard at her ex-husband’s image, thinking back. Their marriage back on Ganymede lasted three years; they hadn’t even finished the agreed five-year contract. The divorce documents cited “irreconcilable differences.” This euphemism concealed all of Tom’s gambling, for one thing. Sometimes he’d be lost inside the dark and gleaming underground casinos for days on end, pissing away his trust-fund money when he couldn’t sell his “books”. Rejection notices always did it to him, he said, made him crazy. Tom was obsessive and flaky: a dilettante born into money, who fancied himself an artist, a literary stylist. But when his stories and books wouldn’t sell, he’d go off and try to make money from sheer luck and the conviction of desperation.

  She let him, at first, but kicked herself now, thinking about it. The more she begged him to stop, the more he would do it. Should have seen this quality in him when we met, she often thought. Lou had been a foolish woman then, fifteen years ago, only nineteen and still getting used to the horrors of a creeping living death, of being an untouchable outcast, and only too horribly grateful for a man who said he could look past all that.

  But when she started objecting to the way he wasted his fortune, his mounting gambling debts, and their possessions getting repossessed, he started hitting her. For a while, grateful for having somebody who treated her at least some of the time like a real woman, she put up with it. When bones began breaking, Lou wondered what she was doing.

  When she woke up after two days of being unconscious, with a broken clavicle, extensive bruising and Tom nowhere to be seen, she left on the first available exsystem ship she could find, a hypertube freighter bound for Kestrel. Fifty-two light-years. Lou’s parents had helped build the space elevator there thirty years ago, when Lou was a kid and Kestrel was a planet full of natural resource wealth like no other.

  She remembered her childhood like flipping through a bunch of garish photos: blurred glimpses. No continuity, no narrative, only disjointed impressions: a dull brown world with extremes of weather, harsh yellow-white sunlight, and cold winter nights. There were monsoon floods five months of the year. Her parents were always fighting over their design and lack of funding; always hunched over displays and plans, always working and only sometimes apologizing for missing her school plays and swimming carnivals.

  Lou blinked, disoriented in the floodtide of memory. The world spun. Sometimes her brain did this to her, dumping a maelstrom of memories on her. She saw Tom on the disposable’s Paper display. Ah, yes. Tom.

  “Louise?” he was asking, as if actually concerned.

  She had learned, back then, not to trust him. Why change a winning strategy? Looking directly at the display, she thought about what he was offering, and said, “I need time to think about it, Tom.”

  He smiled, probably thinking this was all a delightful game. “You mean, you need time to study the data on my ship.”

  “You’re not exactly the white knight in shining armor type,” she fired back at him.

  “And you’re not exactly the fair maiden in need of rescuing. Yet, there you are in need of it, and here I am, capable of helping you.”

  Something is wrong with this picture. “What do you really want, Tom? What’s really going on?”

  He stared hard at her. “Louise, why do you have to be such a bitch about this?”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Tom, you never did me a real selfless favor in all our time together. And now you show up, nice little ship and all, full of generosity, and expect me, of all people, to trust you.”

  “I suppose you’re planning on going upStalk with the Red Cross next week?”

  She nodded. “The Red Cross has never screwed me over, Tom. And they’re the only ones that’ll touch the Kestrel Dead.”

  She could see that Tom was working to control himself, not wanting to lose it. He took a long time, looked off to the side, and finally looked back into the phone pickup. He’s actually upset, Lou realized.

  “I’m really sorry about the whole thing, Louise. About every damn thing. I … don’t know what to say.”

  Lou was impressed by his manipulation. She suddenly felt like the bad guy. “Ah. Whatever. The old stuff, it’s old news. The current situation, well, it’s not so bad.” She tried to put a brave face on it.

  Right now, she would wait until every proton in her body decayed before she’d take a ride with Bloody Tom. Get mixed up with him again? Worse, get obligated to him?

  No way!

  The alternative, she knew, was the Red Cross spacelift from geosynch, to the Orbital, and to the Black Zones, where she would be a long way from the resorts with the white beaches; spending the last weeks, or even days of her peculiar unlife, begging for shelter and subsistence. She and scores of other dead people from here, all competing for resources. Fast rot and disintegration: no tink refreshes and total collapse after only days on the Orbital. At least it would be over quickly.

  That is if the Orbital was far enough out to escape major damage from the Bastard’s impact with Kestrel. There was still a lot of debate about that.

  The Orbital government might also, at the last minute, refuse the Kestrel Dead permission to enter. Red Cross Refugee Services had contracted to take them only as far as the Orbital’s cargo dock. The Orbital people might even space them all, and human rights be damned. Human rights applied to the living, not corpses kept in an artificial semblance of life. To some, including the religiously conservative Orbital government, Lou and her kind were zombies.

  Conditions in the Black Zones were grim, she’d been told. There were riots, brownouts, water shortages, opportunistic diseases, parasitic infections, you name it. The Orbital government only put up with these outcasts out of a sense of charity, and because the Orbital was the only place in this system where such individuals could go, now that Kestrel was doomed. And as long as the Dead were kept away from the wealthy people, who paid enormous sums to live on the Orbital’s balmy islands, all was well.

  And here she was, talking about refusing Tom’s offer. Out of pride and spite, over stuff from ancient history?

  Hell yes!

  Tom Meagher might be a rich bastard now, but he’s still trouble. She’d bet the cure to her virus on that. He was after something.

  She looked up at the display, thinking. “Tom?”

  “Louise?” He looked like he thought he had her in the bag already, the bastard.

  “Tom, why do you look like cold crap on toast today?”

  Thrown off, he flashed a look of anxiety, perhaps panic. “Excuse me?”

  She said, frowning, “You look awful. Haven’t shaved, your hair’s a mess, your eyes all sunken in. You look like you haven’t slept in three days. What’s the matter?”

  Tom fiddled with his hair, smoothing it with a trembling hand. He smiled, trying hard. “Aw, you do care! Bad trip through a hypertube on the way here. Didn’t time the exit exactly right.” He shrugged, grinned. “Next time I’ll trust the flight management system, I guess.”

  Exasperated, she asked, “You piloted the thing yourself?”

  Tom looked away from the pickup. “I wanted to see what it was like. I’d played all the simulators.”

  “God, Tom. The way those tubes drift you coulda come out anywhere! You could have come out inside a bloody star!”

  He looked impish and said, “I actually did that twice in the simulator. Game Over or what!” And he spouted bleak, idiotic laughter.

  She turned to Dog. “Did you hear that? Did you?”

  Dog twitched an ear, but did not take his serious eyes away from the crowd. They seemed keener on their protests and were creating quite a commotion. They were inviting cops to come and stomp their stupid whining faces.

  I’m surrounded by crazy people and fools, she thought. Turning back to Tom, she asked, “How long are you gonna be up there?”

 
“Probably till just before the Stalk unplugs. When they throw me out, basically.”

  “Don’t hang around on my account.”

  “Your problem, Louise,” he said, wearing a raffish smile she remembered too well, “is that you’re too damn sentimental.” He closed the link; the Paper displayed the Kcom logo, and notified Lou that her personal account was being debited for the call to the tune of twenty-nine credits. By her reckoning, she had fifteen credits left. Next time, Tommy-boy could phone her. Lou dropped Dog to the ground and gave back the chair to the disposable.

  Tugging on Dog’s string-leash, she said. “Come on, Dog. We’re gonna go say hello to the cops.”

  Dog, said. “That Tom person was lying to you, Ms. Meagher.”

  She nodded and smiled at the animal’s observation. “You thought so, too, huh?”

  “Is he going to get in the way of you finding Kid?”

  “No bloody way.”

  Dog looked up at her, tail wagging.

  Chapter 5

  Lou and Dog walked up Third Avenue towards the Stalktown Police Authority compound. There was not much to see here other than the black bulk of the compound perimeter wall, five meters high and all but nuke-proof. Bristling antennae spiked from the top of the wall. Three months ago, all buildings within a fifty-meter radius had been cleared for a kill-zone. When the Final Days came, the cops had argued at the time, they expected all kinds of trouble in keeping public order. Even if they had to make that trouble, Lou grumbled.

  Crossing onto the kill-zone — bare red earth with a few weeds struggling for life — Dog stopped and would go no further.

  Lou stopped and looked at her client. He was shuddering, terrified, looking set to bolt if Lou let go of the leash. He howled.

  Squatting next to Dog, she tried stroking his head, but all Dog wanted was escape. “Dog, what’s the—”

  Over the howling and whimpering, the synth-voice said, “Can’t. I just can’t. Not police. Thought I could. Thought I could be brave. A good boy. A brave good boy. For Kid. Thought I could help Kid. But I can’t. Can’t. Please! Let me go!”

  His protests got to her. She felt a lump in her throat. Looking up, she saw the bunker gates still fifty meters away. Beyond, Third Avenue led down to the hub at the center of Stalktown, and the Plex. The Stalk itself plunged up from the Plex, a world-tree with a core of woven polydiamond fibers, each kilometers long.

  Dog touched her knee with a front paw, ears flat against his white, black and brown head. His eyes were wet; she could see white all around the brown irises. He licked her knee; she felt the warm wetness through the fabric of her camo trousers. “Don’t, Ms. Meagher. Please don’t take me there. I can’t go back. Don’t make me. Please don’t.”

  Lou grabbed Dog and picked him up. The effort and pain made her eyes play tricks on her: white and red spots drifted across her vision. Back and leg pain shot through her. “Oh, ow!” she gasped, and began walking away from the compound and the kill-zone.

  At the intersection of Third Avenue and Whitland Street she turned right, heading back to the Metropol Hotel. Holding Dog tight, she stroked him as gently as she could, singing to him, her voice hoarse. She could tell the poor pooch was distressed: he didn’t once complain about her smell or cold body.

  Climbing the Metropol’s fire stairs with a distressed dog in her arms proved more of a challenge than she expected. It took much longer than usual to haul heself up each step. Lou knew the tink must be going berserk processing the fatigue toxins in her tissues, using up the implanted stores ever faster.

  God, I’m going to need a refill soon.

  An hour later, Lou sprawled out on one of her plush white vatgrown-leather couches with Dog huddled next to her. She stroked Dog’s back. “You feel like talking now?”

  Dog turned his head to look at her. He didn’t look thrilled. Looking back at the floor, he said, “The police caught me a while back.”

  Lou had wondered if this might be the case. “When?”

  “A while back. Not long after I got separated from my family.”

  Lou pursed her lips. “What happened?”

  Dog sighed. “Dogfights. They have tournaments.”

  She swore. Lou knew about the dogfights. Back before the city died, there was an underground fight circuit. It could still be there. If it was, she wouldn’t be surprised. They’d mainly be run by people from the Plains districts who’d come into town during the Dry Season with a bunch of dogs they’d tortured into murderously insane monsters. Lots of money changed hands. There was even talk that Orbital-based org-crime outfits had an interest in the betting. God knew, they had an interest in every other thing going on, legal or otherwise. The cops were supposed to stop it, and there were frequent arrests, fines, and sometimes even jail time for a prominent organizer. The tournaments simply went further underground. Folks Lou had talked to suspected that the cops were in on it and probably got a portion of the take in return for lenient treatment.

  Dog shivered at his memories. “The police saw what I was right away, that I wasn’t a regular dog. They scanned me with something. I think they figured my machines would give me an edge over other dogs.”

  “You’re still alive. Maybe your machines did help.”

  Dog said nothing, staring at the floor, shivering.

  “You think the cops would recognize you if they saw you again?”

  “Do I look like a regular dumb mutt?”

  No, she admitted to herself, he didn’t.

  “I have to ask the cops about the night Kid disappeared,” she said.

  He looked at her. “I’ll be all right here. Honestly. I’ll be fine. Leave me some water and something to eat. I haven’t eaten in a while.”

  Lou got up and hunted through her stores of food. She didn’t have much. “I have some plain cracker things. They’re … kind of not that fresh. Sorry.”

  Dog seemed to shrug. “That’ll be fine. Really. What about water?”

  “There’s no running water, but I do keep some bottled stuff on hand.” She went into the kitchen area and came back with a fine china bowl, marked with a Hotel Metropol insignia, brimming with water. “Tastes kinda yuck ‘cause of the bottle.” She put it on the floor; Dog jumped down and started lapping at the water. His synth-voice said thanks.

  “Oh, and if you need to relieve yourself, Dog, just go ahead, wherever you are. The carpet eats that kind of thing.”

  Dog twitched his ears, surprised. “It does? Why doesn’t it eat you, or the furniture, or…?” He looked at his feet, tail down.

  “Some nano thing. It knows what it can eat, you know? Works pretty well.”

  He looked at her, and then sniffed at the floor, poking at it. When he saw drops of water from his snout disappear into the carpet he darted back, ears down, and barked. “What if it makes a mistake?”

  “It’ll be fine. If you’re really worried, go out on the balcony and do your business there.”

  Dog looked at the balcony, then back at her, his face grave. “Perhaps you could find me some newspapers?”

  Lou shrugged, understanding too well how nano fiber carpet could be unsettling and just a little bit strange for Dog. “Sure. You bet. Maybe I can find some while I’m out.”

  With Dog taken care of, Lou told him to expect her back in a couple of hours. As she pulled open the suite’s door, Dog said, “Ms. Meagher?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks.” His ears looked perky.

  She smiled and left, careful to lock the door. Going down the fire stairs, Lou tried to imagine the horror of having human-level awareness and being forced into dogfights. Fighting another dog to the death, while humans wagered on the outcome. How many other dogs had Dog killed before he got out, she wondered? Did he remember? She felt sick and angry thinking about it.

  Soon
she was back on Third Avenue, approaching the cops’ compound. Two cops in black patrol armor stood at the big gates. Lou looked around her as she crossed the barren dirt of the kill-zone. The street was quiet, which was normal for this area these days. Since the cops had fortified their base, civilian activity had fallen to almost nothing. The few shops and apartments near here were shuttered and dilapidated.

  A voice from behind her, “Louise! I caught you in time. Thank goodness.”

  Someone spun her around. Lou felt something strange and cold on her arm.

  It was a weird-looking woman. Startled, Lou tried to escape the strange-feeling grip, but her arm was held tight. It didn’t feel like any kind of regular hand doing the holding, either. It didn’t feel as substantial as a hand. It felt a little tingly.

  “What the bloody hell is this? Who—?” She tried to get a good look at this person.

  Standing before Lou, the woman shouted at her, “I’m sorry to just spring this on you, but it’s important you listen to me. If you go in there, Louise, you have to be very careful. Do you understand? Your life could be in grave danger!” There was something strange about the woman’s voice, too, almost as if it wasn’t really coming from this odd person standing before her.

  Lou blinked, confused. This weird woman wore a tattered sunhat, fixed to her head with a pink fabric strap. It was set at an odd angle, and Lou could see that there was no hair on the woman’s head. She wore a badly made blue cotton dress; it hung, shapeless, on her body, and made Lou wonder if the woman was one of the Dead, except she looked too healthy, and she wasn’t familiar. Her eyes were dark and huge, and alive with agitation.

  Why does this feel wrong? Lou thought. “Who are you? What’s going on?”

  Lou could see that the woman was looking toward the armored gates set into the wall around the bunker. They were closer to the cops at the gates than she realized and she could see the silver Police Authority coat of arms on their black helmets. Flat black panels hid their faces. She could hear the hum of their suit systems, and could smell the faint tang of coolant on the air.