Evolution

by Saunders, Craig

  The trip for the third piece was all that kept Cetee going. She was looking forward to it. If she had to hold Kyle’s hand while he roamed the toot stores then so be it. She would hold his hand and when she got to the massive pleasure ship of her kind he could go his own way. She needed a break from him. Kyle was quite happy with the situation but Cetee was a lone predator by nature, even more so than Kyle.

  Now they sat watching, waiting to make their break, from where the ship lounged like a fried egg. The nanobots were on holiday, and after the trip back from non-space to real space and time the ship was stretched and warped, splayed over the refuse tip.

  They emerged from the midst of the rubbish, where they now sat.

  In front of them three figures showed through a reinforced brobrium door. Kyle’s eyes followed the path back to the comcenter and into the main power outlet. One of the figures sat in front of a holocom, talking to the upper half of his commander.

  He turned his back for a second, and Cetee and Kyle jumped off. Leaving the guards blissfully unaware and fortuitously behind them they walked nonchalantly into the trader’s arena.

  *

  Traders of the Enlightened rarely engaged in the trade of recycled materials, but the ship they had stowed away on was one of 4564 exceptions to the rule. The ship, bound for Harckand (the Enlightened’s central repository for second-hand goods) was stacked to the brim with interesting archeofacts, biojunk and metallic goods. If you were to wish for a carboot sale in space, this would be it.

  They walked through the shopping arena, full of running platals and dubious capastellans. On Kyle’s left the towering remains of warp drives, fusion cores, and intermatter interfaces loomed. The remains of thousands of ship’s parts were rammed and crammed into each other down the entire left side of what could only be called a high street. On the right were the trader’s stalls, each on barred and chained against thieves. The toot stores of Harckand attracted many an unscrupulous trader and where traders went so went the universe’s cutthroats and footpads. It was a dangerous place and wasn’t patrolled by the merctile police. The merctile’s patrolled Harckand, but each of the feeder ships were subject to the attentions of the underclass. It meant that many of the denizens of the ship were as seedy as the traders. The rigourously unattended shopping area was awash with the flotsam and jetsam of deep space.

  The shopping arena, as Orpal had called it, was the first and last place for desperate shoppers. Desperate they certainly were.

  Kyle and Cetee walked close together, Cetee armoured and Kyle armed. They were enjoying a break from Orpal and had neglected to wear their eargens so it was a break for them all. What Cetee really needed was a break from Kyle.

  Kyle attempted to take Cetee’s hand but she shrugged him off. Cetee wished they had set some parameters earlier in their relationship and felt like things were running away from her. It wasn’t like her to fall for someone in the game and she felt the weight of it pressing down on her.

  “Kyle, I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” broached Cetee.

  “We’ve had ample time.” Kyle, on the other hand, was more than happy with things just the way they were. For a hunter, willing prey wasn’t often top of the list, but he felt that Cetee was worth laying down his arms for.

  “That’s the thing, it wasn’t really time, and, well, now I feel things are moving a little fast…I’ve only ever loved one man Kyle, and you’re not him. This is just a bit of fun and I want it to stay that way.”

  Kyle stopped short beside a Jaril Doon ship, only three feet taller than him. The Doons had long since abandoned it. “A little fast?!” he blurted. “We’ve been all but living together for the past three weeks! Anything less than marriage now would be a regressive step.” He looked hurt.

  “A regressive step? You really should stop talking to Orpal.” She pushed Kyle’s hand away once more. Kyle, seemingly unflustered by this continual rejection, took up his own hand and wrung it. It was the only sign of distress he gave. But he felt cheated. Cetee walked on, past a trader beckoning to her with subtly wavering hips and a sly grin on wide, pasty lips.

  “Orpal’s fine, it’s you I should stop talking to.”

  “Oh, I knew you’d be like that.”

  “Well, we’re here now so there’s no sense in going over it now. Perhaps the shopping break will do you good.”

  “Oh, that’s your answer to everything, isn’t it? Hunt, shop, it’s all the same to you. You never deal with anything head on.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like Orpal,” Cetee stopped and browsed a bioweapons store, picking up a genogun far less advanced than Kyle’s and putting it down again, to the consternation of the trader. Cetee was his first sniff at a customer all day long.

  “What do you mean?” asked Kyle.

  “Orpal is using you.”

  “No, he’s not, I’m in his employ.”

  “Well, what’s he paying you?”

  “He’s, erm, not. “ Kyle stammered. “What’s he paying you, then?”

  Cetee stopped walking. “He paid me for the piece I stole from Cablas, but he’s not offered me anything for this next job.”

  Both looked at each other.

  “Well, what the hell are we working for him for then?” they said as one.

  Kyle laughed. “I’m working for him because I want to see this through. This is like no hunt I’ve ever been on and I’m enjoying it.”

  “That’s just perfect. You’re enjoying yourself and that’s all that matters, right?”

  “What more do you want from me? I thought you didn’t want anything to happen between us. Just a bit of fun, eh?”

  “Well, yes,” said Cetee on unstable ground, “But I need something a bit more challenging out of life than just this. I’m a thief. I don’t do this for philanthropic reasons, and well, Orpal just doesn’t pay enough.”

  “Is that all you think about? Money?”

  “I don’t work for money, I work for my health.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I work for time, Kyle. I thought you would have figured out I’m older than you now.”

  “No, how do you expect me to figure that out?” Kyle stopped by a store selling hunting knives. He picked up a skinning blade that hummed when it was in his hand. The laser projector was shot though, and intermittently it sputtered out. He put it back. Cetee looked around, looking for Miriandianda’s store.

  “It’s not that difficult. I thought perhaps the way I know everything that you don’t would have given you pause for thought.”

  “I just thought you were smarter than me.”

  “Well, there is that.”

  “How old are you then?”

  Cetee stopped and pointed up. The sign said ‘Miriandianda – Solutions’.

  “We’re here.”

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “What about us?”

  “Later, Kyle, later.”

  “Always later with you isn’t it?”

  “Why do you think I won’t sleep with you?”

  “I just figured you were frigid.”

  Cetee laughed out loud.

  Miriandianda watched them in amusement.

  Kyle noticed her watching and ha-hemmed pointedly at Cetee. She shut up and Kyle made his greeting.

  Miriandianda was a Glasiandan. Over time the Glasiandans had evolved a higher level of communication than that which hampered the lovers. The Glasiandans eschewed any written or spoken form of communication and as a result they were entirely peaceful, at least among their own kind. The development of glandular communication had led to the eradication of war. After the second stage of evolution they evolved what can only be described as an empathy gland. It turned out it was the race’s greatest ally in keeping the peace – you’re less inclined to kill or rob if you know what it feels like to be on the receiving end. There are aberrations, of course, but then no system of evolution is perfect.

  (Harna Gurn used this as h
is thirteen-hundred and sixty-seventh example in his doctorate to underline the point that the next step in societal evolution had proven to be the battle between competition and cooperation. Um’lael Sabreme took this doctorate as the starting point when he had left society to continue his long-term study of the quarantined nanide community. He found the point underlined from his study, although the scholars of the Geodessy University never got to hear of his conclusions.)

  Aside from being peaceful and contented and noticeably unrufflable (unlike most traders on 507/4564) she was fat. Not just ordinarily fat, but fat like a star nursery pregnant with quintuplets.

  Her empathy gland, the largest part of her body, made her the perfect saleswoman. She could feel literally from her head to her toes (they were like toes, only she could eat with them, which saved her from bending when underwater and flooding her huirinian palsa) what the customer was looking for, and being unencumbered by morals decided exactly how much of their money she could take to pay for it.

  Silently, Kyle bowed and tried to summon the feeling in him that Orpal engendered. Generally a kind of dumfounded consternation. To Miriandianda it sounded like, ‘Orpal sent us’.

  ‘Ah, Orpal,’ she replied through her palsa, looking delighted. ‘It’s been over a three thousand years! How is the old bastard?’

  ‘Still an old bastard,’ felt Kyle wholeheartedly.

  ‘What can I do for him? Are you his avatars?’

  ‘No, more like allies, I believe,’ felt Cetee, a little too snootily.

  ‘Now, what we want is something to interact with a pair of Lu eyes we picked up.’

  ‘The soul guardian? You have them with you?’ she asked, a gleam of anticipation in her eye.

  ‘No no, Orpal has them…’

  ‘Ah. A shame.’

  ‘But we still need some kind of interface to speak with them.’

  ‘Yes, I have heard the rumours. They are stubborn in life and in death. Singleminded brutes by all accounts.’

  ‘Well, do you have anything that could facilitate communication?’ asked Cetee.

  ‘Hmm.’ Miriandianda rubbed her hep thalma as if deep in thought.

  ‘Yes, I do believe I have something that could help.’

  They spent a few awkward moments on the high street as the Glasiandan disappeared into the back of her tent. She reappeared a moment later, holding a flask. She gave them the solution.

  Kyle held it up to the light. ‘So I put them in this?’

  ‘Yes.’ She smiled at both of them, rubbery lips pulled back over corpulent gums. ‘Put them in this. It’s not that they won’t talk to you, although I would suggest you try this ancapilar solution to feed them nutrients and try an il y’ap interface,’ Kyle nodded respectfully, ‘pulse light through the frin spectrum and I think you’ll find them most receptive.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Er,’ felt Cetee, unsuccessfully.

  Kyle nudged her. ‘She said thank you, too,’ he felt for Cetee.

  They left, the ancapilar solution safely esconced in Cetee’s shoulder bag. Kyle was petulant and wasn’t talking to her.

  As lovers they left a lot to be desired. They worked better as lovers when they weren’t actually talking to each other. It was a knack Kyle had, Cetee was unhappy because it was a knack she lacked.

  Miriandianda waved them goodbye and sent her regards to Orpal. As they left she thought to herself, or more accurately felt, there’s no hope for those two.

  *

  As their next stop would be for the third piece of the emitter, situated on the Hedonal’s sybaritic ship (the vast pleasure complexes of a sect of the Enlightened) Cetee was attempting to purchase a bioweapon that would pass inspection and allow her into the ship armed. Kyle’s genogun, a meld of biotech, would not pass and at least one of them should go armed. Cetee’s holmium armour would never be allowed through, not with its stilleto and shoulder cannon.

  The sybaritic ships of the Enlightened were notoriously difficult to smuggle weapons onto, especially since the breakout of war between the Lore and the Enlightened.

  Pleasure among the Enlightened didn’t include killing, for which Orpal was grateful. Any race, and there were many, who thought that killing was fun wasn’t allowed in. No violence was practised there. Kyle would pass because hunters counted as sportsmen, so long as they only hunted first level castes, the lowest caste which consisted mainly of beasts and those species which hadn’t reached the binary stage of mathematical evolution. Bots were thus protected, while lower species, such as the Hunigna, the Yuthi and Joon bugs were not.

  There were still weapons on the ships, of course, but only those of biological basis would ever get through the weapon barrier. Armed ships were even forced to park outside, and disable their weapons within 100,000 kilometers.

  Unarmed, the two would be unable to take the piece, so Orpal had suggested and Cetee seconded that Cetee took a concealed weapon and ran point on this operation. Kyle agreed, if only because he would be unable to get used to a new weapon in time for their arrival, two days distant from the archeojunk ship they were now on.

  So, their next stop was to look for a weapon for Cetee. So they did.

  For a very long time.

  The first place they went to after leaving Miriandianda’s, there was archeojunk littered everywhere, some on tables, some in cages so as not to let them out. The merchant looked as though a lifetime of harbouring dark thoughts had leeched the colour from him. He looked out of shady eyes lurking in his sallow face as Cetee approached. The trader was a Karrisman.

  Cetee looked long and hard at the assortment of weaponry available, including a reasonably priced sinblade, and smiled her best smile at the trader before taking Kyle by the arm and leading him safely from the shop.

  The second place they went to was equally hideous, the weapons, even those bladed, uncleaned from their last use.

  The third place was delightful, but far too expensive. The weapons, according to the trader, from the Hunin shop of Carris. Even the Enlightened would baulk at such prices.

  After that, Kyle lost count.

  *

  Kyle had had enough of shopping for one day. His feet ached and he was tired. There was something about the pace that Cetee walked at that sapped him of energy.

  It was remarkable really. Cetee put more effort into shopping than she did sex. Kyle was sweating by the time they had walked at a remarkably tiring saunter past the fifty-third stall on the ship. There were hardly any stalls they hadn’t looked over and even though Cetee was supposed to be buying a weapon it still hadn’t stopped her from looking into armour and nicnac stalls.

  Kyle had bought a hotdog and nothing else. He was pleased with his purchase though, remarking that it didn’t matter where you went in the universe there was always somewhere to buy a hotdog.

  “Come on, come on. We’ve looked at umpteen places already. Surely something will do.”

  “It’s not easy to get a bioweapon that can be concealed and that packs enough punch to be suitable.”

  “Does it have to be a bioweapon? I saw a lovely blade back there, reasonably priced. “

  ”I saw it too, covered with matted sinew and hide, was it not?”

  “Perhaps you could give it a clean up?” suggested Kyle, to Cetee’s scorn.

  “There’s nothing for it. It’ll have to be the first place we went to. The Karrisman.”

  “They’re untrustworthy, you know,” said Kyle.

  “Well, we’re looking for a concealed weapon – it must be biological. The sinblade the Karrisman had will be better than any other.”

  The thing with sinblades was that they needed a bioimplant into Cetee’s arm, which would not show up on any scanner, to work. It was a long drawn out process to get a sinblade fitted properly and Kyle didn’t want to have to wait around. Plus, the Karrismen were insurgents. They had mastered the art of guerrilla warfare, where they are able to surgically or genetically alter their appearance, their basic nature, to
infiltrate and destroy their enemies. They were a small race and thus have never even bothered to develop more extensive arms but concentrated to exclusivity on small hit-and-run tactics. They were able to change themselves chemically to blow themselves up, able to change parts of their anatomy into weapons, change neural networks and pathways to control their bioweapons, and were as a result in high demand as spies. They sold their services to the highest bidder, the larger bodies which neglected the micro in favour of the macro, and then realised when they came up against it just how gravely they have underestimated the enemy.

  Such people were intrinsically sneaky.

  In the end, after much bickering, they went back to the first place and bought the sinblade.

  Kyle had a most unwelcome sense of dejavu.

  Kyle ate another hotdog and gambled on a mud brag fight while he waited for Cetee’s fitting to be done. It took three hours, by which time Kyle had won enough money to pay for the fitting. Fortunately he didn’t have to spend it though. Orpal seemed to have endless supplies of money and had given them enough to buy and fit three sinblades. If there was one thing Kyle didn’t want for it was cash.

  Three hours later Cetee emerged with the sinblade implanted into her right hand.

  *

  Back at the ship Kyle and Cetee admired the Karrisman’s handiwork while Orpal prepared to leave.