by Elin Wyn
“It has similar properties to Starbarite,” the shopkeeper said quickly. “However, when heated correctly and mixed with the right alloys, it’s indestructible, unlike Starbarite.”
“What’s the heating process?” I asked.
The shopkeeper’s beady eyes jumped to me. He looked annoyed that I’d spoken at all, though that could’ve just been his face.
“I can’t divulge company secrets,” he tutted. “As I said, we are the only ones that have access to such a metal. Who’s to say you won’t try to get ahold of it yourself and steal our business?”
Orrin looked at me from the corner of his eye. He didn’t believe a word the shopkeeper said. Neither did I.
Sure, heating metal, mixing it, that was a standard way to make a new, stronger material.
But this just felt wrong.
“Orrin, pass it here,” I asked. He handed the ShockEater to me, and I ran my hands over it, tapped it. It felt exactly like Starbarite. Poorly treated Starbarite, at that. “What’s the asking price?”
“Seventeen thousand credits,” the shopkeeper replied.
“Wow,” I mused, running my hand along the spring. “For such a price, this must be an amazing product.”
“Oh! It is!” The merchant jiggled with excitement. “Unbreakable, indestructible, guaranteed!”
“If that’s true,” I gripped the ShockEater by both of its bases, “then how come I can do this?” I pulled the bases in opposite directions and the spring gave minimal resistance before it snapped with a loud crack.
The shopkeeper looked on in horror as I handed the pieces back to him.
“Indestructible, is it? Guaranteed?” Orrin folded his thick arms across his chest. “I don’t appreciate being lied to.”
“You owe me seventeen thousand credits!” the shopkeeper sputtered in outrage.
“Do you have a price marker for your unbreakable, indestructible part? I’d love to take that,” he pointed to the broken spring, “and the price marker down to the security station. I’m sure they’d love to know all about your overpriced pieces of junk and your blatant lies.”
“Slander me and you’ll be in a world of trouble,” the shopkeeper threatened.
“I wonder what else I can break in here,” I mused. “I’ll bet it’s filled with things that are just as unbreakable.”
The shopkeeper shot me a nasty look.
“It looks like you have some options, friend,” Orrin gave the shopkeeper a smile that was anything but friendly. “We can report you, my assistant can look for more indestructible products to test, or you can fetch us a shock absorber that will actually do what it’s meant to at a reasonable price.”
“Assistant?” I glared at him, but he only smirked.
“I will do no such thing!” the giant slug insisted.
“Very well.” Orrin looked to me. “Why don’t you weed out the faulty products while I fetch security?”
“Sounds fun,” I grinned. I scanned the room, looking for anything low quality. The shelves were stuffed with junk, all ridiculously over-priced. A wave of anger passed over me. He was just preying on people, but surely there had to be actual parts somewhere in here, right?
“Now wait a minute!” The shopkeeper threw his blubbery arms up. Orrin, who was halfway out the door, paused.
“Is there something you want to say?” Orrin asked.
“I have a proper shock absorber in the back. Reputable brand. I’ll get them for you if you leave security out of this,” the shopkeeper surrendered.
“How much?” Orrin asked.
“Four hundred credits.”
“Knock that down to two hundred and you have a deal,” I grinned.
“Outrageous!” the shopkeeper exclaimed.
I grabbed an item priced at two hundred thousand credits and tossed it from hand to hand.
“This looks more fragile than I’d expect for that sort of price,” I mused. “Tell me, shopkeeper. Is this another indestructible item of yours?”
He sputtered in outrage before realizing he was trapped. Grumbling, he went to the back and fetched a proper shock absorber.
“Thank you,” I smiled sweetly. “I’m glad we could come to an agreement.”
Orrin placed the payment on the counter.
“Pleasure doing business with you.”
Orrin
“Well, that was fun.”
Maris looked up at me as we walked, brow wrinkling at my comment.
“Watching you deal with that vendor was a pleasure. Not only did you save us money and keep us from purchasing terrible parts, you made me laugh and you embarrassed a thief. I count that as a win all around.”
She tossed her head back and laughed as we walked down the street. Several people looked at us and smiled as well. The streets in this part weren’t the cleanest, and a slight haze hung in the air. I couldn’t make out what the haze consisted of, but it smelled like a mixture of industrial lubricant and food.
Maybe I’d spent too much time with my engines, but I actually found it appealing.
As we weaved, and sometimes pushed, our way through the crowded street, we talked about what we could make out of some of the spare parts we’d picked up earlier.
“You know what I really want to make?” Maris asked as we passed by yet another food vendor trying to sell us some unusual looking seafood. “I want to make a slushy machine, so I can have some yummy fruity iciness with my meals.”
“What’s a slushy?” I asked. My stomach growled and turned at the sight of the seafood. Some of it smelled good, some of it smelled rotten, just like it looked. “Are you hungry?”
“Yes, yes, I am.”
“Good, because I’m starving. You find us a place to eat and I’ll pay.” I shook my head at the vendor, turning down his offer for a sample. He frowned and turned his attention to someone else. “Now, what’s a slushy?”
“It’s basically a frozen fruit drink.” She pushed her way through the crowd and pulled me behind her. She turned left down another street that was less crowded. “Something down here smells good.”
She was right, it did.
“Anyway, it’s sort of hard to explain. Crushed ice mixed with a fruity drink. It’s really tasty as long as you get the right flavors.”
“Hmm. Maybe we can find one or find the parts we need for one after lunch.”
“Ooh, can we?” Her enthusiasm made me laugh.
Suddenly I realized she had stopped walking and that I had passed her.
“Huh?” I turned around to see her standing in front of a dilapidated-looking restaurant. “This place?” I asked.
“Mm-hmm. The best smells ever are coming from in here and I really wanna see what they belong to,” she answered before she walked in, leaving me to hurry to catch up.
I followed her into the place and was instantly bombarded by the smells of what was cooking inside, along with some cigar smoke, a little bit of cleaner, and some spilled alcohol. The lighting inside was shady, literally.
Most of the lights had small shades over them that muted the light and that created a dim atmosphere.
I hesitated in the doorway, stepped back out to look at the sign, translated it in my head, then stepped back in with a juvenile grin on my face.
This place was called the Shady Suspicion.
I groaned, enjoying the terrible play on words.
I found Maris already sitting at a little round table to the right of the door. The tables were all made of metal, some of them round, some square. There was a bar against the back wall, a massive mirror on the wall behind it with shelves loaded with alcohol in front of the mirror.
The floor was stained in places, making it difficult to tell the original color, while the dark green and gray walls looked as though they were in desperate need of a fresh coat.
And despite everything, I loved it. Blame the enticing smells that only made my stomach growl louder. Or the awful, awful pun.
But this was the perfect place for a meal.
And she was the perfect person to share it with.
I sat down across from Maris who was already looking at the menu. Blinking and flashing, it scrolled across the table in a variety of symbols until I tapped it, stopping it at Shein.
“Crap,” Maris muttered. “I can read it, but I don’t know what these things are.”
I guess the auto-tutor wasn’t really equipped for that. Something to bring up, when we weren’t short on time.
“Trust me to order for you?”
She paused, thought. “How do you know what I like?”
Which was a valid point. But I’d noticed what she ate, what she skipped in the dining hall. Come to think about it, I’d noticed quite a lot about her.
“If I’m wrong, you can tease me about it for two, no, three days.”
I took her eye-rolling as agreement.
Within minutes, our server, a disturbingly thin, unusually short, six-armed creature of unknown gender came over and waited.
“She’d like the…”
I stopped as it hit something in its apron pocket, then took out an old-fashioned translator and set it on the table.
“Stupid thing,” it warbled. “Try it again.”
I ordered slowly, hoping that a mechanical fault in the translator wasn’t going to have me ordering something inedible for Maris.
While we waited for our orders, we talked. I was intrigued to hear about the different things they used back on Earth and Mars. “So, a car is a vehicle that can transport people and almost everyone owns one, but a pickup is a bigger version with a bed instead of a trunk?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“So, you sleep in a pickup while a car is used to carry your things?”
“Mmm, not quite. Sorry, let me try again. Here,” she grabbed a napkin and pulled a stylus from her pocket. She drew two rudimentary sketches of a car and a pickup, as well as something called a truck and a van. The van was a smaller version of a truck and was unable to separate itself from its cargo container, while the pickup, now that I saw the drawing, looked like what I used to drive before I got involved with Aavat and Dejar.
I drew my own rough sketches—which was funny, because I could draw the schematics for my engines with amazing detail, but my sketches looked like a child with the shivers drew them—of what we used back on my homeworld.
Most of the vehicles that were used in the city used magnetic technology to move around, while the vehicles out in the country still used wheels.
Our food was brought to us and we tore into it, neither of us having realized exactly how hungry we were.
The old tech in that translator must have worked well enough, because we ended up with what I’d ordered.
Maris dove into a meal she insisted resembled a cheeseburger—something resembling meat and cheese stuffed between two pieces of Andelirn bread—while I’d been craving Doophlecison spiced legs, a favorite of mine growing up.
Maris said they looked like chicken legs.
I’d ask what a chicken was later, when I wasn’t so ravenous.
The conversation moved on to how to modify the Skimmer, or maybe even make another vehicle that could be used for pickups, deliveries, or simply to just move around outside the ship.
“Ooh, if we move the rotors here instead of here, we can give it better maneuverability, especially if we find a way to make it airtight for use out of atmosphere,” Maris said as she pointed to one of the dozens of napkins we had sketched on.
“That sounds a good idea, but how do we go about making it space worthy?”
“Well,” she said, then stopped as she stared at the napkin. “Hold on.” As she started going through the other napkins, I looked around.
Not many people were inside with us, just a few patrons on the other side of the room, two people sitting at the bar, the waitress—or waiter, we still hadn’t figured that one out—and a newcomer that had just walked in.
Something about him made me pay attention.
It wasn’t just his size, even if he was as large as I am. Not too many species were as tall or broad as Shein. Those that were were usually easy to identify, either the horns, tail, or second head making it easy to place their species.
But he didn’t have any of those markers. Despite the deep hood pulled over his head and the respirator mask that covered his lower face, it would have been impossible to hide something so prominent.
He leaned on the bar with gloved hands, his movements oddly alternating between smooth and jerky.
Maybe he’d been in low gravity for a while. That would do it.
Maybe.
Unable to ignore the prickle in my gut, I listened to him talk to the bartender while Maris worked on her sketches.
“What do you want?” the bartender asked.
“Give me a Serkian beer, thick,” the newcomer answered as he leaned on one of the stools, scanning the room. Then he pulled out a large stack of credits and laid down a bill much larger than his beer would cost. “And some information.”
“Eh, if I have any,” the bartender growled as he pulled the beer out of the tap. “What you want to know?”
“I’m looking for some women.”
“Heh.” The bartender slapped down the drink. “You and half the males I know.”
“Not just any women, special women. Ones like you haven’t seen before. Ones like nobody has seen before.”
Scro.
I grabbed Maris’s hand, her wide eyes revealing she’d already heard.
“Any information on women from a species you’d never heard of,” he took another long drink as I pulled up the charge on the table menu, shoved credits into the payment opening, “I’m in the market for.”
We didn’t need to hear anything else.
Whether he was looking for the women rescued from the auction, or the human women we’d taken as crewmates, the Rogue Star needed to know, and I needed to get Maris out of there.
“Fuck me!” Maris whispered as we walked away quickly.
An entirely unsuitable image ran through my mind, setting a slow burn in my blood, but I shoved it away. That can’t have been what she meant.
“What’s the matter?”
“Look at me,” she said, stopping and holding her arms out wide.
Then it clicked.
Her makeup had come off in patches on her arms. Probably when we’d been at the last merchant’s.
Showing in broad swaths, her olive skin stood out against the shimmer of stardust.
“I’m not in disguise. I look like me.”
Which wasn’t a bad way to look, I thought to myself before I answered. “It was too dark for him to see you clearly, I’m sure.”
She took a shuddering breath.
“Really? I’ve dealt with several different vendors already, called that one out for his shenanigans, and we just sat in that bar for over an hour.” She wrapped her arms around her body, and all I wanted to do was hold her close. Tell her everything would be fine.
“Are you sure enough to risk everyone’s life?”
Scro.
Maris
Orrin lent me his shirt to pull on over my clothes, the long sleeves spilling over my hands, the hem past my knees.
Not exactly the most fashionable look, I was sure, but no one would see my smeared skin.
My hand wrapped firmly in his, he led us back to the Rogue Star, bare chested. I kept my gaze fixed on his broad back, refusing to look to either side for fear of catching someone’s eye.
“Did anyone see us, pay too much attention to me?” I asked once we were safely on board.
“We got a few odd stares, but I’m sure no one could see you clearly,” Orrin replied, pulling his shirt back on. “If the bounty hunter were to ask them anything, they wouldn’t be able to definitively say you’re human, or anything other than Shein.” He grinned. “If anything, they would have thought we were a mated pair, anxious to get home.”
Oh. My cheeks heated, and my breath caught, but th
is wasn’t the time.
There was never going to be a time.
Not for that.
Alright brain, back in gear. “Well, that’s good,” I nodded even though I didn’t feel good at all.
“Let’s go talk to the captain now,” Orrin suggested. I nodded again and silently followed him down the corridor to the office. Orrin lifted a large fist to knock on the door.
“We have news,” Orrin said the moment Dejar opened the door to his office.
“What is it?”
Orrin offered me the chair, but I couldn’t make myself sit down.
“We heard a bounty hunter talking at one of the bars in town,” Orrin began.
“What were you doing at a bar?” Dejar asked. “I thought you were shopping for parts.”
“Maris beat a swindling shopkeeper at his own game. I wanted to reward her for her good work.” A hint of a smile appeared on his lips.
Despite the unease thrumming through my body, I was still proud of how we’d knocked that shopkeeper down a peg or two.
“Right,” Dejar said slowly. “So, a bounty hunter said what, exactly?”
“He was asking the barkeep if he’d seen any women around,” Orrin reported. “Women from species no one recognized.”
“What did the barkeep say?” Dejar demanded, face stern.
“They barkeep said he hadn’t seen anyone like that,” I said. “But Orrin and I were walking around for a while.” I stuck my arms out. “And the stardust rubbed off. If that bounty hunter asks any of the shopkeepers that might’ve seen us, we’ll be in deep shit.”
Dejar went silent as he processed the information.
“I don’t think we should panic just yet,” he said after a moment of silence. “No one here would’ve seen a human before until today. There are so many species coming and going through the station all the time, I think it’s a long shot they’d single you out as one of the ones the bounty hunter is searching for.”
“See, Maris? You’ve got nothing to worry about.” Orrin placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. “You haven’t doomed us.”
“We’ll have to start taking better precautions,” Dejar said. “I should’ve insisted we do this from the beginning. It’s my fault more than anyone’s.”