Breathing Space

by S. J. Higbee

  Yeah, definitely Heaven. The air was heavy with humid warmth, smells of earth and flowers. We seemed to be in some sort of garden. No, that wasn’t right. This was a plant-lined room, because those were walls, weren’t they? And I wasn’t lying on a normal bed – it was round, for starters, and seemed to be some kind of hammock arrangement. I looked down the length of my body, which was – I realised with growing delight – naked under swathes of the same brown material as those Gaiast robes I’d been wearing.

  “Hey, you’re awake.” Wynn put down the parch pad and leaned towards me, his grin making me tingle.

  “Yeah,” I croaked, still trying to get my bearings. “Where are we?”

  “On the Eaought ship. What d’you remember?”

  We’re not in Heaven… We’re not a couple… He doesn’t love me… As full recollection crashed through me, my throat tightened making it hard to breathe. I closed my eyes, which were suddenly watering on account of the light.

  About time you surfaced, Lizzy!

  “You solid? Cerk reckoned those dregging monsters knew plenty about our biology, so they’d fix you up good as new.” Wynn took my hand.

  “Oh good. You’re back with us,” called a deep fluting voice from the far corner of the room.

  I was still scrabbling to get my bearings as he dropped my hand. “I didn’t know there was anyone else here from Home Turf.”

  “There isn’t.” He turned around. “Hey, Tend – you gonna come and be introduced to your patient?” Something in his voice jerked me free of the lingering lethargy silting up my head.

  Something that made me struggle to sit up and set the bed gently swinging, so I could clearly see the creature as it slowly approached. I stared, unable to believe my eyes. She – it had to be female with that body shape – was only four feet high. Her dark, glossy hair was piled on top of her head in a complicated style threaded through with flowers and ribbons. Though her hairline didn’t stop at her forehead. Her matt-brown skin was covered with a fine layer of fur and her nose was a pair of flattened nostrils, but her large brown eyes were wholly human as she gazed at me, clearly wary.

  “If it weren’t for Tend, here, you’d be feeling a whole lot worse,” Wynn’s voice was pleading with me to be welcoming to this poor creature. This space chimp slave.

  “Thank you,” I said slowly and loudly.

  “You’re welcome,” she replied, her wide smile showing white even teeth. “Trouble with the Eaties is they waaay too galumphing to be allowed to be let loose anywhere near a Sap bod.” She rolled her eyes and giggled. “Wouldn’t be too keen on having even good ol’ Thinks trying to fix me up, as it happens.”

  I smiled back, not sure exactly what she was on about.

  “Better give Thinks a shout. Let him know Herself is wakeful and aware,” she burbled.

  Granted, she was talking in an oddly accented version of Shinese which isn’t my first, or second language, however I’d been studying it pretty much full-time on the way to Hawking. Yet I couldn’t fully decode what she was saying. I looked at Wynn and raised my eyebrows.

  He grinned. “It appears that Cheeseface’s name in Eatie-speak is something along the lines’ve Thinks A Lot ‘bout How to Mess Up Everyone Else’s Day in Favour Of the Eaties.”

  My short burst of laughter was drowned out by the space chimp’s howl.

  My first thought was that she must be in pain as she reeled backwards, slumping against the door and sliding down it, doubled up and yelping – before I realised she was laughing. Her eyes streamed and she slapped her legs as she whooped and gurgled. Just when I was getting concerned that she’d burst a blood vessel or need a dose of Karmdown gas, she subsided, mopping her eyes on her sleeve.

  “Ah, that’s a good one! I’ll have to tell Fling and Sped. They’ll just kill themselves when they hear that one! Cheeseface… Thinks A Lot About How to Mess Up Everyone Else’s Day in Favour of the Eaties…” Which set her off all over again.

  It was oddly infectious. Both Wynn and me were giggling along with her when Cheetshzay and Cerk marched into the room, immediately putting the lid on any kind’ve laughter from both of us. Not the space chimp, though.

  Cerk rolled his eyes. “What is it this time, Tend?”

  She pointed at Wynn. “Him…” she finally managed. “He’s funny enough to turn dark matter into joy juice an’ that’s a fact. As well as being oddly coloured – that yellow hair is a side-splitter on its own. But every time he opens his mouth, he comes out with another gem – Cheeseface!” she hooted.

  I held my breath, waiting for the Eaought to bristle, or start retching a nasty retort. But he ignored the Dar, instead fixing me with that eerie amber glare of his. And now I was without the veil, I felt a whole lot more vulnerable.

  C’mon Lizzy! You’ve out-blanked some’ve the biggest drossers in Sector Two. Staple on your parade-ground face and you’ll be shiny.

  Heartened by Jessica’s handy reminder, I steadily gazed back into those huge eyes as Cheetshzay came to a halt by the bed and started gurgling. He clearly had a lot to say, as the nasty noises went on for a long lightyear.

  It certainly sobered the Dar, as she stopped her hooting laughter and was openly listening.

  So this space chimp, or Dar – I must remember to call her a Dar – can understand Eaoughtish.

  Her eyes grew rounder as she looked first at Cheetshzay, and then at me. Before breaking out into laughter, again. Though this wasn’t the open, infectious merriment of earlier – there was a hard-edged quality to her cackling.

  If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was laughing at Cheetshzay…

  Cerk clearly thought so, flushing with anger as he turned to her. “Haven’t you got something else you should be doing?”

  “Uh-uh.” She shook her head, as Cheetshzay’s long, drain-clearing performance finally came to a halt.

  A relief. I was starting to feel nauseous at his horrible noises.

  She crossed her arms and leant against the door, her brown eyes glittering as she added, “It’ll be peaking to see whether the Saps’ll swallow all that manure Thinks is spouting.”

  I held my breath, waiting for the Eaought to whirl around and punish her. Or at least order her away, but he simply acted as if she wasn’t there.

  And after briefly frowning at her, Cerk cleared his throat. “The Wise and Honoured Cheetshzay is very glad to see the treatments he arranged for you have been so successful.”

  Wynn gripped my hand, squeezing it hard as he replied, “Though it wouldn’t have been necessary if you hadn’t caused her ulcer to perforate. Nearly killing her.”

  What! Wynn caught my eye and shook his head the tiniest bit. So I stayed quiet.

  Cerk shifted, clearly unhappy, as he continued, “Cheetshzay feels it is a symptom of how poorly humans manage their affairs that they choose such a weak specimen so badly equipped to defend her status and that of her people.” Cerk was unable to meet my eyes, as he added, “You must keenly feel the disgrace of your pathetic inability to cope with a relatively mild admonishment.”

  Tend hooted. It could’ve been that she was replying to some message that had pinged up on her com, but judging from the expression on her face it was far more likely to be a comment on the flotsam we’d just heard.

  Not that I felt all that comfortable looking around, because all the weight of Cheetshzay’s attention was pressing upon me. His huge-eyed amber stare willing me to respond to his lame-brained attack.

  Because if I do respond in any way – he’ll claim I was offering a challenge to his leadership. No wonder our soldiers are at such risk around these beasts! They’ll tolerate any amount of nonsense from those they reckon are beneath their notice, but if someone higher up the food chain so much as looks sideways at the hairy lump, he’ll use it as an excuse to jump all over them. It’s impossible to negotiate with the drosser...

  So don’t! Treat him with the same tactic he’s using on the space chimp. Ignore him. He’s beneath your notice. Then
you don’t have to justify yourself, or get into any kind’ve contest where he can take the opportunity to flatten you.

  Of course! I slid my gaze away from Cheetshzay’s glare and squeezed Wynn’s hand to signal that I – finally – understood what he was trying to do.

  “D’you want to see what I’ve been working on, Boss?” asked Wynn.

  “If you please.”

  Wynn spun his parch around – and my jaw dropped. His graphite strokes were mostly light, creating a feathery soft look to his sketches. Not this time. The marks on the parch were black, as two huge shaggy creatures towered over a crumpled figure. One of the beasts was in the act of scoring the helpless girl with a vicious swipe of his clawed talons, while the expression on both their alien faces conveyed spite and brutality. While I’d actually been wearing a veil at the time of the attack, artistic licence had me bare-headed in this sketch so my pain-racked expression was clearly visible.

  I knew Wynn was talented – he couldn’t have produced such arresting sculptures otherwise. However, I hadn’t realised he was also an excellent artist.

  Not that Cerk was impressed. “You can’t do that!”

  “Why not?” Wynn’s voice was colder than an icecap. “I’m an artist. It’s my job to record things I see. And this…” He flicked his parchpad with his fingers. “…is what I saw. Not to have captured it would be plain wrong. Many folks on Earth are curious about our alien neighbours. This’ll show them, right enough.”

  Cheetshzay leaned across, grabbed the pad and focused on it, before emitting a squall that needed no translating whatsoever.

  “Cheetshzay is very upset,” Cerk added, unnecessarily.

  Hope it gives him ulcers.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing!” Cerk leaned towards me, full of urgency.

  “Oh, I think I do.” I’ve been facing down politicians, smugglers, traders and business bods for the last five years. Don’t you tell me I haven’t worked out the ramifications if this pic reaches splatter proportions across the galaxy.

  “That scribble isn’t even accurate. You were wearing a veil. And as for that…” Cerk flapped a hand at the drawing. “S’posed to be blood? You were bleeding internally with that ulcer, so that’s all wrong!”

  “You’re right,” agreed Wynn. “She was wearing a veil. But she was also bleeding badly.”

  “Big old slice across her back.” Tend was still leaning against the door, evidently quite comfortable about joining in. “Right gory mess it was, too. Hadda skinweld it shut. If you don’t believe me, I’m sure she’ll show you the scar.”

  Not if I can help it.

  “Why don’t you go and do some work?” snapped Cerk.

  “Cos this is more fun, of course.” Tend rolled her eyes. “And you’re s’posed to be one of the smarter Saps? No wonder you’re all in such a mess.”

  Cheetshzay interrupted. He had a lot to say and, judging by the way he was waving around both sets of arms, he was still upset. Which solidly made my day as I stared at the plant wall off to his right.

  “The Honoured and Wise Cheetshzay is dismayed that humans hold themselves in such low esteem, they don’t bother to appoint leaders who are worthy,” announced Cerk.

  “And what gives the Wise and Honoured Cheetshzay the right to judge our leader?” asked Wynn.

  “Cheetshzay fears that your soldiers must be weak and gullible to allow such a puny female to command them. Especially as she refuses to show suitable respect to a superior species,” mumbled Cerk, looking as comfy as a butterfly in a black hole.

  Focusing on the plants in the wall, I wondered why so many of them seemed familiar.

  “Seriously?” Wynn raised his eyebrows. “You really believe this compost you’re mouthing? Cos I can understand why ol’ Cheeseface might have us back to front, but surely you can’t plug into all this hogswill. We evolved on a planet stuffed full of large shaggy creatures with claws. If we’d cowered every time something fiercer and bigger snarled a threat in our direction, we’d have been extinct millennia ago.”

  Cerk blinked. Evidently having dismissed Wynn as brainless and beautiful, he was now busy rearranging his mental furniture. “That’s a point Cheetshzay hasn’t taken into account.”

  “Yeah, score one for the Saps!” hooted Tend, clapping and stamping her feet. “You may look freaky with that yellow hair, but you’ve a keen line in jokes and you’ve put a kink in old Thinks’ airhose.”

  I stared across at her, shifting my own mental furniture. Intel on the Dars had them as downtrodden victims, three-quarters monkey with no brain worth the name, slogging in sweat-soaked slavery. Whatever Tend was, she was mostly human. Come to think of it – she had a degree of freedom that most serving crew on an English merchanter could only dream of. “Why d’you keep calling us Saps?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Same reason you call us Dars – homo sapiens – Saps for short.”

  I opened my mouth to ask if she realised that sap is also a word for a sense-vac’d fool – and then closed it again when I saw the mocking twist to her mouth. Of course she did.

  “And my patient is now looking like something that’s been spat out’ve a ‘cycler,” Tend announced, bustling forward and making shooing gestures at Cerk and Cheetshzay. “Go on, make like smoke. She’s reached the end of her airline and needs her rest.”

  Cheetshzay stomped out, managing to step around Tend while still acting as if she wasn’t there, leaving his human lapdog behind, as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit.

  “This isn’t sorted!” Cerk snapped, jabbing a finger at Wynn. “You might think that joining in with Tend’s jokefest is a cosy way of settling in – but the Eaoughts aren’t laughing. About any of this!”

  “And you’ve spent waaay too long with your nose buried in your hairy friend’s arse if you reckon I’m finding any’ve what went down remotely funny,” Wynn’s anger was an icy contrast to Cerk’s flushed fury. “She damn near died!”

  “Because the ulcer she was already suffering from went and burst,” returned Cerk. “Nothing to do with the Eaoughts, merely a consequence of her lack of physical condition. As Cheetshzay’s been pointing out.”

  “Though if he hadn’t fixed it so she was puking her guts out, she’d likely have gotten away without it perforating.” Tend was clearly enjoying the drama as she helped stoke it some more. “And Thinks is also wrong about her being meat-suite fodder. That ulcer was being medicated by her augs just fine – till she started wearing that snitched robe, which shut down her augs and stopped her treatment. So go on, run along now. And make sure you tell Thinks how wrong he’s been.”

  Cerk glared at her, before he spun around and marched out of the room without another word, clearly still furious.

  She turned to me. “Didn’t you realise it would make you sick?”

  I lay back down, tired to my marrow. “Now you mention it, I recall the medic saying he’d progged my augs to keep it controlled. But what with one thing and another, it’d slipped my mind.”

  Her huge brown eyes widened as she tilted her head on one side, looking at me as if I’d sprouted horns and a tail. “How’d you forget a thing like that? Or…” her grin showed too many teeth. “Is this some kind’ve leaderly pose to show how important you are?”

  I closed my eyes as she started massaging my forehead with strong, gentle fingers. “Mm. Thank you… that’s stellar. No, don’t think I’ve ever missed meals or gone without sleep to show everyone else that I’m the boss. There was always so much to do, though. And I was so scared that if I eased up, it would roll over me. And if the job got away from me, our people would end up dying.”

  “So now? Cos you don’t seem to be taking your ease. Let’s face it, hitching a ride on an Eatie ship didn’t work out all that well for you. Why’d you do it?”

  “Eddy – my brother – he’s headed to Earth after organising a riot on Hawking. It was a major mess that led—ˮ

  “I know all about the Hawking Atrocity, thanking you kind
ly,” Tend said. “We get all the Sap journo-feeds on the ship, as well as back at home. So I also know who you are… And? You’ve stepped down. Surely you can rest a bit. Or are you some lame-brained adrenaline-junkie?” Her fingers were still kneading my scalp, her touch a deal kinder than her sharp words.

  “Eddy – I jabbed at him too hard,” I confessed, finding her easy to talk to. “So he’s all set to track down our family and kill them. I got to get to Earth fast as I can and Cheetshzay offered me a ride in return for a favour. Though – as you say – it’s not been my smartest move so far.”

  “And the favour?”

  I hesitated. Was Cheetshzay keeping this business secret? Though, if that was his intention, the Dars clearly operated beneath the Eaought’s radar. “He’s asked me to look into Sladen Waller’s death. Though everyone reckoned he’d flung himself out’ve the airlock, we’ve proof that someone else was responsible.”

  Her fingers stopped teasing tension knots across my head. “You’re going to investigate Father Waller’s murder?”

  I opened my eyes, trying to figure why her voice suddenly sounded so odd. “That’s the plan. After I’ve taken care of Eddy, that is.”

  “Did Cheetshzay make you take some kind’ve of oath or promise?”

  I nodded.

  “And then nearly killed you with all’ve his alpha species wormfood.”

  “Felt like wormfood when I was puking up my intestines while those Eatie guards were busy giving me lovetaps with their toes,” I said.

  “That’s another solid gem! Lovetaps with their toes…” she gasped, mopping her eyes and doubling up as another paroxysm overtook her.

  Wynn and I grinned at each other – it was impossible to stay straight-faced while watching her helplessly whooping with laughter. I watched his Earth-blue eyes dancing as his face relaxed, making him look younger.

  “I’d no idea you Saps were so funny,” she said when she finally subsided. “Have to say it doesn’t come across on the journo-spots.”

  “Yeah, well, journos aren’t overly interested in anything that isn’t doomy. Don’t s’pose you get to see all that many’ve us,” I said.