by T. F. Grant
“Can you recover the data?” Kina asked.
“I’m trying.”
Tai stepped forward and watched over Sara’s shoulder as streams of code filled the control panel, replacing the Markesian script with recognizable numbers and letters. A jumbled mess of characters brick-walled the display. “You understand any of that?”
“Wait,” Sara said as she scanned line by line.
The light within Telo’s crystals dimmed and started to flicker.
“No, no, no,” Sara said as she frantically read the code.
Flicker, to a slow pulse, and finally to barely a glow, Telo went offline. The lights of the Damnfine darkened once before coming back on. A flashing orange triangle on the control panel caught Tai’s attention. “What’s that mean?”
“It means the ship’s system is rebooting. It crashed. He’s gone. Telo’s gone.”
“But the code,” Kina said. “What was it?”
“Just four words buried amongst a bunch of useless system reports held within Telo’s temporary memory.”
“And?” Tai said. “What were the words?”
With a stony unemotional expression, she said, “… go to the surface.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Bookworm sagged back against the desk. “All of them,” he whispered.
“Yes,” Sweet-Sap rustled the words. “None of them survived in the pods. It is an interesting anomaly, like the Markesian’s superconducting ceramics. The pods survived Hollow Space for quite a time, but still they broke down until they no longer functioned. But the breakdown seemed to start within the pods. From the exterior they were working normally, but they had ceased to function. We will spend many cycles discovering why this was. Maybe it is some strange effect of the materials used in the construction of the pods? Maybe—”
“Shut the freck up!” Bookworm screamed. “I don’t give a freck about how interesting a problem this is for you cold-blooded bastards.”
“We do not have blood,” Sweet-Sap said. A quiver ran through his leaves. “But you are upset. I understand. I will return later with your tasking.”
“Get the freck out of my sight, you overgrown weed.”
“Be very careful how you speak to us, Dylan Meredith James.”
“Freck you, Sweet-Sap-Flowing-Cold-As-Liquid-Nitrogen-In-Bark-As-Smelly-As-An-Old-Dog’s-Breath-While—”
A thin, impossibly strong vine whipped out from Sweet-Sap’s foliage and wrapped itself around Bookworm’s throat. “Do not mock my name, human.”
The vine tightened. Bookworm clawed at it but could not break its grip. He tried to draw a breath, but the vine cut off his air. He gasped, reaching out a hand for the knife at his belt. Another vine whipped out and bound his arms to his sides. And another bound his legs, holding him upright while the vine around his throat slowly strangled him.
Sweet-Sap pulsed the pressure, allowing him to breathe for a moment, then clamped off his air again.
Bookworm lost track of how long he was held in that deadly embrace.
Then Sweet-Sap released him, letting him fall to the floor, gasping and panting, with tears running from his eyes.
“Never mock the name of a Drift, human. The next time will be your end.” Sweet-Sap flowed away on his thousand rootlet feet.
Bookworm finally caught his breath. He hacked up phlegm and spat it onto the deck. “Bastard.”
Clawed feet pattered upon the wooden floor of the library. Bookworm lifted his head. A male chyros trotted through the desks toward him on six clawed feet. The ape-like torso twisted above the feline body, and slitted eyes stared at Bookworm from the striped fur of the chyros’s face.
“Ah, there you are,” the chyros said. “Sweet-Sap said I would find you here. I am named Ledbar.”
“What the freck do you want?” Bookworm rasped through his injured throat. Man, that hurt. Tai was right about the damned walking shrubs—deadlier than they looked.
“I have been looking at your weapons, Dylan. Very nice. Powerful.”
“My weapons?” Bookworm said, not understanding.
“Yes, they were retrieved from the hulk before it was sold to the Cauders.”
“Retrieved? Sold? The Venture’s been sold?”
“Yes, of course. Somebody had to pay for Tairon Cauder’s release.”
“I fought for that damn ship. I saw men die for that ship. And the bitch sold it!” Bookworm ignored the pain in his throat and yelled out his rage. How the hell could Sara do such a thing? To throw away all that they had fought for…
“What does it matter to you?” Ledbar asked. “It was not yours. You are indentured to the Drifts now.” Ledbar sighed. “As am I. Though my crime was not as glorious as yours. Such a heist.” Admiration colored the chyros’s tone. “Such a heist, you’ve made your name for all eternity here.” He sighed again. “Of course, it means your indenture is for life, whereas mine will end in a few orbits of the star. But still, what ambition you had.” The strange centaur-like creature leaned forward and studied Bookworm’s neck. “Hmm, that looks painful. I have a salve. Will clear the rash right up, but the bruise…” He shook his head sadly.
“Rash?” Bookworm ran a hand over his injured neck. It began to itch, and he started to scratch.
Ledbar reached out a taloned hand and pulled Bookworm’s hand away gently. “Don’t scratch. It will only make it worse.” He pulled forth a glass jar from his belt. “Rub this onto it. The rash will fade in a few days. But you will probably carry the scar for life. Drifts like to mark their disciples.”
Bookworm took the jar and opened it. The salve smelled sweet, like jasmine. He rubbed the oily substance onto his skin, and the itch faded away into a mild numbness.
“What did you do to upset Sweet-Sap?” Ledbar asked.
Bookworm told him, and Ledbar’s eyes grew huge. “You changed his name? To that? I have no idea why you are still alive. You never mock a Drift’s name. Never. There’s one of my pack, down on the lower levels, that has no legs because he called a Drift a stinking piece of driftwood. He is kept alive because the Drift who mutilated him commanded it. You actually changed the words of Sweet-Sap’s name.” Ledbar shook his head slowly and whistled. “You are a very brave man, Dylan Meredith James.”
“Or stupid,” Bookworm said.
“Well, yes, but I didn’t like to say that to the man who stole a hundred thousand books and almost got away with it.”
“They’re my books.”
“Not on Haven, they’re not.”
“What the hell do you want, My Little Pony?”
Ledbar laughed. “Never heard that before. What is it?”
“Old twentieth-century Earth toy. For little girls.”
“Ah, you gave it to your females. Much honor from the touch of the more powerful of a species.”
Bookworm thought about explaining, but decided not. “Yeah, something like that. Hey, wait a second. I heard Tairon and Hela making fun of Sweet-Sap’s name. In the Drift’s hearing.”
“What did they say?”
“Tai gave Sweet-Sap’s full name. Then said they called him ‘Sweet-Sap.’ And then Hela said they called him ‘Sap’ for short.”
“Oh, that. Drifts don’t really understand sarcasm. You have to go out of your way to spell it out to them. As you did.” Ledbar clicked his tongue. “Don’t do that again,” he advised.
Bookworm sighed. “What do you want, Ledbar?”
“Like I said, I’ve been studying your weapons. Lovely engineering.”
“Why?”
“To make more ammunition, of course. You’re an investigator for the Scholars now. An Invigilator. You’ll need a lot of ammo.”
“Why?”
“It is dangerous out there in Hollow Space.”
Bookworm rubbed at his throat. “I’d have thought they could take care of anything.”
“Oh no, Bookthief, Drifts never leave the station. They send others, people like you, to investigate out there.”
Bookworm sneered.
“Of course they frecking do.”
***
Aleatra’s laugh grated on Sara’s ears. “You want what?” The Crowner chortled. “And you offer nothing in return for such access?”
Chitaan and Catheraine stood beside Aleatra and the three humans who still considered themselves Crowners: DeLaney and the Hentian twins. The Markesian overlords were still and silent, as if their minds were elsewhere, but the play of light across their eyes showed that they were listening intently to Tai’s words.
“I offer my services as a pilot,” Tai said. “I offer the services of my crew.” He waved his hand at Sara, Kina, and Tooize.
“She is crew now?” Aleatra pointed at Sara. “Oh, how the overweening ambition has fallen. She who thought she was greater than me is now crew to a man in disgrace.” His mouth twisted in a vicious sneer. “You were about to be thrown out an airlock, without a suit. Only your mother’s skirts saved you. Why would anyone deal with you?”
“You are full of questions, aren’t you?” Tai said. His hand hovered over his holstered Dorian.
Sara spoke, anger overwhelming her grief, and prudence making her speak before Aleatra pushed Tai too far. “We are not here to talk to you, Crowner. We are here to deal with Chitaan and Catheraine. They are the power here, president of three measly humans.” Sara saw Margo flinch at the words, saw Murlowe frown deeply, but DeLaney flushed with anger.
“Oh, the murderess speaks.” Aleatra spat on the deck before Sara’s feet. The Markesians hissed their anger and backed away. “Oh, sorry,” Aleatra said hurriedly. “I am sorry, my friends, so sorry. My anger overwhelmed my manners. DeLaney,” he snapped, “clean that up immediately.”
DeLaney dived at the spot of human spittle, rubbing at it with his sleeve. Margo’s face twisted in disgust. Sara felt almost ashamed for DeLaney’s debasement, but her contempt for the man outweighed her pity.
He leapt to his feet, the deck plates clean behind him.
“Surprised he didn’t lick it up,” Kina murmured.
Nausea clenched at Sara’s stomach for a moment when she realized that DeLaney would have done that if ordered.
The eager look on his face, like a pet wagging his tail at the man who beat him, as he stepped toward Aleatra, turned Sara’s stomach again. “All clean, Majesty,” DeLaney whined.
The Markesians hissed again.
“Get away from us, you filthy oaf,” Aleatra snarled. “Go. Change into clean clothes. Have a shower. Do not return until you have scrubbed the taint from every inch of your skin.” He turned to the Markesians and bowed. “My apologies for my uncouth servant.”
“Just can’t get good staff these days,” Kina muttered and then glanced at Sara with that quick and achingly beautiful smile upon her face.
Sara looked away before tears started to flow. She did not deserve that smile.
One of the children had long dark hair framing her face. Such a pretty face. She would have grown up into a great beauty. Instead she lay in an open stasis pod, as cold and dead as the dreams within her mother’s head. Sara had hoped, in that moment, that the child’s mother died in the Markesian attack. Blasted into molecules by their disrupters. Opened to space. Anything was better than dying here upon the cold hard deck because of the egotistical stupidity of Sara Lorelle, chief navigator of the Venture.
Sara blinked, and the memory of the child faded away. DeLaney had gone. The Hentian twins flanked Aleatra now; they would not look at Sara.
She didn’t blame them.
Chitaan was speaking. “… we cannot allow you access to our flagship, Tairon Cauder.”
“I offer you a chance to find out what’s going on here in Hollow Space, why we’re trapped. I offer you a way to find your way home again.”
Sara remembered Jhang’s naked desire for a way home. Would this be enough? Would the Markesians accept this deal? The use of their flagship’s systems to boot up Telo in return for allowing Markesians to accompany them to the surface of the planet as observers. Would it be enough? Would the desire be enough?
She blinked and refocused on what was being said.
Aleatra was speaking in a scornful tone. “… it is not a trap? How do we know that you have not inserted a virus into that AI? How do we know that you do not seek to destroy us?”
“I give you my word,” Tai said to the Markesians. He did not even look at the scowling Aleatra. “I give you my word. I will have the deal placed in the Book of Trades. I have no ill intent toward you.”
“Your word.” Aleatra snorted. “As if that means anything here.”
Catheraine turned her gaze upon the Crowner. “He kept his word before. He did as he had promised to do in exchange for the scuttler.” She waved a talon at the deck around them. “He traded in good faith. Found us lodgings on the station.” She tilted her head in that strange inhuman way. “Unlike you, Aleatra. You promised us soldiers to fight against our rebels. Instead you sent us the old and the weak. Slaves and fools. Untrained and badly armed.”
“They were the best I had available at the time.”
“So you said.” Catheraine became still once more and let her mate speak.
“I am sorry, Tairon Cauder,” Chitaan said. “But we cannot do this. This human”—he gestured at Aleatra—“is correct in his way. This place is unknown to us. Its morality an equation we have not yet parsed. We cannot trust that what you did before is what you would do again. We cannot know if you have already made some other trade to destroy us that will supersede this deal.”
“That is not the way deals work,” Tooize whistled, his feathers bristling.
“And how are we supposed to know that?” Chitaan whistled back. He not only understood kronac, he could speak it too.
Sara saw the confusion flicker across Tooize’s face. “Who are you, Markesians?” he asked.
“Explorers,” Catheraine answered.
“Whatever,” Tai snapped. “Look, you can’t get to the planet’s surface without us. We have the skills and the knowledge of Hollow Space that you lack. I was born here, so was Kina. We know this place better than you ever will. It is in our blood.”
There was a desperation in Tai’s voice that Sara had never heard before. His normal self-confidence seemingly washed away by his mother’s visit. Sara had a sudden, terrifying thought. What would Tai do? What would he deal? To regain his freedom.
“It is a fair trade,” he said. “One quarter cycle aboard your flagship in return for taking four Markesians to the surface of the planet with us.”
“I am sorry,” Chitaan said. They turned to leave.
Aleatra grinned savagely. He had blocked Tai’s deal by instilling suspicion in the Markesians.
Sara grinned back at him. “They know who you are now, Crowner.”
Aleatra’s grin faded.
“We have artifacts,” Tai shouted.
Chitaan turned back. “Artifacts?”
“We’ll add it into the deal,” Tai said. “Lend us the flagship, and we will tell you all that we know.”
“Oh no we frecking won’t,” Sara snapped.
Tai turned his furious gaze upon her. “Shut up, newcomer, this is dealing, not playing the hero.”
“Careful, Tai,” Kina warned, then added, “and she’s right.”
Tai dropped his head.
“I am sorry,” Chitaan said. “It is not possible.”
***
“I can’t work with them.” Bookworm gestured at the stacked piles of books beside his desk. He waved his arms at the library shelves. “I cannot work with them.”
Sweet-Sap rustled. “But you risked all for the paper, for the knowledge, for the data. It is why we let you live. We thought you, of all the sentient species we had met, were most like us.”
“They died,” Bookworm said. “Fifty-four people died. Alone and cold, in pods we could’ve opened. I could’ve argued for it. I could’ve made Sara see. Instead I cared only for this.” He threw a book across the room. “Do you know what that is? It’s a fr
ecking joke book. That’s all. Just a book full of juvenile jokes. And this one.” Another book followed the first. “A piece-of-crap story about stock characters in stock situations doing stupid things because the stock plot demanded it of them. ‘I think we better split up,’” he mimicked the words harshly. “Worthless. Pointless. ‘Let’s go down in the cellar to investigate that strange noise.’ I let people die for crap like that.” He picked up another book.
Sweet-Sap snatched it from his hand. “No more throwing of paper, of books, Dylan Meredith James.”
“I can’t work with them.” Bookworm held the sobs in the back of his throat. It gave his voice a strangled quality. “Fifty-four real, breathing, living human beings. And all I cared about…” The words died, he could not go on.
“This will pass. This is just grief. Human grief. Very strange,” Sweet-Sap said, “but transitory.”
Bookworm lifted his chin. “Leave me alone in this library and I will burn it to the ground.” He waited for the vines to slash at him, to tear him limb from limb, and welcomed the thought of death.
A vine did snake from Sweet-Sap’s body. It did wrap itself around Bookworm’s neck. But, as he tensed against death, the vine slipped across his skin, trailing some slippery mucus, and where it passed, the marks of the earlier attack faded away to nothing. The bruise was gone, the rash was gone, no scar left in its wake.
“Then,” Sweet-Sap said, almost a note of resignation in his tones, “there is nothing I can do for you now.”
Sharp-Thorn glided into the library stacks, as if called by Sweet-Sap. “You are mine now, human,” he said. “Come.”
A vine lashed out, wrapping itself around Bookworm’s wrist. He thought of fighting, of forcing the Drift to kill him, but a strange lassitude overcame his resistance, and he followed along behind Sharp-Thorn, as docile as a well-trained dog on a leash.
The short, black-leafed Drift led Bookworm into a room hidden behind a bookshelf that slid open to allow them entry.
Inside, a naked man sat strapped to a chair. In one part of his brain, Dylan recoiled at the sight of the injuries, but in the rest of his brain, he simply noted the wounds as if they were on a bug pinned to a board.