TableofContents

by Low Bo

  "Or a messenger," he said. "If a union representative makes a complaint against the company, the Commonwealth will have to intervene."

  "Soje, Soje." Awandi rubbed her hands across her face. Her voice was gentle when she spoke again. "Soje, the union died when gamma spoke blew. Don't you see? There is no union. I don't say it to hurt you. You're my brother and I love you. But you have to see, you're only going to get yourself killed." She spread her hands. "And for what? A CW observer? What on or off of Glory makes you think they'll care?"

  "They will care," Izu said, eyes dark in her pale face. "They will care when they find out about the illegal biochems the company has been extorting from Glory in return for the supplies the CW is paying Hope Gate to transport. Commonwealth authorities take their contracts, and their laws, very seriously."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Illegals left off the shuttle manifests," Soje said. "Company's been stockpiling them, shipping them out on the company personnel transports." He grimly smiled at her look. "You're not the only one who knows how to use a com."

  "It is true," Izu said. "Even if the Commonwealth cares about nothing else, the traffic in illegal biochems will bring them. If we can prove our case, they will be forced to take over operation of Hope Gate."

  "And once we're CW territory, we're eligible to Join the IntraCommonwealth Alliance of Space Workers' Unions," Soje said, his eyes once more alight. "Which means that if the CW doesn't give us what we want, the whole damn system goes on strike. There's no way we can lose."

  Awandi looked at him. At them both. "Unless the company blows the whole station into vacuum, along with all the evidence," she said.

  When neither of them had an answer to that, she went home.

  * * *

  Despite every argument Awandi could bring to bear, Soje began spreading the word, first to the crews in delta spoke, then beyond. He was feverish, desperate, alive. With Izu's transport arriving within a few watches he had no time to waste on secrecy. He just spoke to crew after crew, in mess halls, rec halls, passage-ways, lifts. Risking severe penalties under the post-strike regulations, he even went to other pits in his off shifts, helping crews with the added workload, wearing himself to the bone. And although Awandi heard a few faint echoes of her own misgivings, they were all but drowned by the chorus of approval and support.

  "They're crazy," she said to Wen one off watch in the rec hall, watching Soje in the midst of a group like a star in the center of its system.

  "Crazy to hope?" he said.

  She stared at him. "You think he's right?"

  "What I think, cousin, is that I'd rather be blown out an airlock trying to live free than be worn down and burned out like your mother and mine. In fact," he added with a grin, "I'm not sure I wouldn't rather be on Glory." And he went to join the group around her brother.

  After a watch that had seen seventeen cargo pods, two of them major repairs, all Awandi wanted was sleep. But she had spotted Soje heading for the inter-spoke transport, and so she went instead to his cubby to talk to Izu.

  "You are afraid," Izu said, and gestured Awandi to sit beside her on Soje's bunk. She was smiling, but it was hard for Awandi not to see her pale face as a mask hiding lies.

  "You aren't afraid?"

  Izu lifted a hand in a kind of shrug. She was so small and her gestures so graceful she made Awandi feel the size and shape of a pod. She said, "One is always afraid, on Glory." Then she smiled. "Even more afraid in the cargo pod. When I woke up wrapped in a body bag, it seemed as if the worst had already happened. I've already died and gone to hell; even if it didn't quite happen in that order, it's hard to see what there is left to fear."

  "Easy for me," Awandi said. "I have more than just my life to lose."

  "You imagine I do not? Should your company cease to transport the CW supplies, no one on Glory will survive."

  "Not even the denanos?"

  Izu studied her a moment, a smile hovering at the corners of her eyes. "They are surprisingly human. They need food, and air, and love, the same as everyone else."

  "But they can survive on Glory, even outside the catacombs, can't they?"

  "The nans can cope with a great deal, it's true. Yes, the denanos can survive in the open for short stretches of time, but-"

  "What about injunies? It's dangerous on Glory, isn't it? The dust storms and the criminals and the quakes. I bet they can heal pretty good, too, huh?"

  Izu swallowed. "It depends on the injury, but yes, they-I mean, I understand they can-"

  "What about decompression?" Awandi interrupted. "Can they survive that?"

  Izu's eyes flickered, then dropped to her folded hands. "Perhaps. For short periods. They-" She broke off at a thump on the cubby's door, relieved.

  So , Awandi thought. But then, she was relieved to open the door, to have an excuse to put space between herself and the other woman. Relief died a quick death, though. The instant she saw Chouss and Wen, and the battered, blood-soaked man that hung lolling between them.

  "Move, girl," Chouss said, low and fierce, and Awandi stepped belatedly aside. The five of them crowded the cubby, even once Chouss had lowered the man to the bunk. It was Soje.

  "What..." She couldn't make her voice work.

  "He was in alpha spoke," Wen said, lifting Soje's feet to the bunk. Chouss was checking his pulse, her frown like a chasm between her brows. "Somebody put him on the transport," Wen continued, sitting wearily by Soje's feet. "Just luck I found him."

  "How is he?" Her voice still wouldn't rise above a whisper. Chouss said without looking up, "Not good. Weak pulse, cold skin, bubbly breathing." She sat on the floor by the head of the bunk and propped her head on a bloody hand. "Not good."

  Wen leaned his elbows on his knees. "Got the shit kicked out of him."

  "Who? Security?"

  Wen shrugged. So did Chouss after a minute. "Them or scabs."

  "Well. Did you call medical?"

  Again just a couple of shrugs. Awandi started to shake. Instead of venting her rage on them, she turned and called medical, careful to press the buttons gently instead of pounding them through the wall.

  EMS. State the nature of the emergency.

  "My brother. He's injured."

  Name and location,

  "Aramin Soje, delta spoke, residential section four, cubby number eight-one-three. Please hurry." Her voice staxted to die again, trapped Eke her heart in her throat. "Please hurry."

  The faint hiss of an open line. Then a different voice said, Repeat that name and location.

  "Soje. Aramin Soje. Delta spoke, residential..."

  But the light on the com panel had died. The line was dead.

  "So much for medical," Wen said, and put his face in his hands.

  * * *

  Awandi sat on her brother's bunk, holding his hand and watching him die. He had their mother's hands, as she did. The same long bones and big knuckles, the same calluses and scars, the same sharp line between the brown of the back and the pink of the palm. The hand she held lay slack in hers, cold as the rest of him. All his energy was in his lungs, trying to breathe. Trying to breathe.

  Weary with grief, she asked Chouss, "Isn't there something you can do?"

  Chouss propped her graying head against the cubby wall and closed her eyes, her only response.

  "Wen?"

  He rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes, shook his head. No.

  No. Awandi lifted her head, feeling the pull of the station's spin, and looked at the pale woman from Glory standing in the corner, arms wrapped around her chest as if she were cold. It was hard to ask. "Izu? Isn't there something you can do?"

  Izu looked at her, at Soje, breathing pink froth through his shattered mouth. Slowly lifted her hand to cover her eyes. "No."

  As if she hadn't spoken, Awandi said, "I'll help you get to your ship. I promise. Even if it... Even if it doesn't work."

  "Wanda," Chouss said. "Don't. She's as helpless as the rest of us."


  "No she isn't."

  "Let her be."

  Awandi let go her brother's hand and stood, noticing again how she towered over the other woman. "Please," she said. "Please, Izu."

  "Wandi," Wen said painfully. "Let it go."

  "No."

  Izu was staring at her, eyes wide and fixed.

  "It was because of you," Awandi told her. just one step and they were face to face. "I don't say that to lay blame, Izu. It was his choice. He did it for his own reasons. But still. If you hadn't come."

  "Damn it, Awandi," Chouss said, climbing to her feet. It was her crewboss voice. "Back off."

  "He would have saved your people and mine," Awandi said, the words somehow apart from her, cold and calm, separate from the hot black star of grief in her gut. "He would have. Your people and mine. And you won't lift a damn finger to help him?"

  "Awandi," Chouss said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

  "I am so sorry," Izu said, white as the paint on the walls, lips blue as a bruise. No pretense she didn't understand. "I am so sorry, Awandi. But I cannot. I cannot."

  Awandi's fist, like her voice, seemed disconnected from the rest of her. It lifted and swung out with the power of scores of watches in the pit and smashed Izu's Jaw.

  Damn it, girl, that's enough!" Chouss said, hauling her back against the door. Wen was on his feet, between Awandi and the Glory woman. There was hardly enough room for all of them to stand. Soje's breath wheezed and bubbled into the silence.

  Awandi met Izu's eyes over Wen's shoulder. "Show them," she said quietly. "Let them see."

  Izu slowly took her hands away from her face.

  "Sweet Mother," Wen said, stepping back onto Awandi's foot. On the side of Izu's jaw, where Awandi's fist had connected, a black stain spread and grew, lifting the skin from underneath. A black swarm rising to repair the damage, biochem mechanicals, alive and not alive, colony of strangeness under the human skin. Even though she'd been expecting it, Awandi rubbed her sore knuckles on her shirt, skin crawling.

  Chouss gripped her shoulder hard enough to leave a bruise. "Denanos. By the hard bitch Of vacuum, Wandi, you were night."

  "Well," said Izu. The black swelling shifted as she spoke. "Now you know. But I still can't help Soje."

  "Why not?" Awandi demanded. "You said denanos could survive injury-"

  "He isn't denanos."

  "But you could make him one, couldn't you? Can't you? Isn't that why they quarantined you in the first place, because it's so damn contagious?"

  "Is that what they tell you?" Izu shook her head. Already the black stain was beginning to shrink. She appeared to feel no pain.

  Awandi shoved Wen's back to get him off her foot, then squeezed around him to sit back down on the bed. Soje's hand seemed even colder than before.

  "What do you mean?" Chouss said. "Why else did they quarantine you?"

  "Why?" Izu smiled, her subtle fierceness returning to her eyes. "Why would the Commonwealth be afraid of a race of people-who are hard to kill and take a long time to die, who can live and work in environments that would kill a cockroach, who can invent drugs and poisons in their guts-why? You tell me. Are you less afraid of me now than when you only thought I'd drink your blood and give you a nasty disease?"

  Awandi rubbed her brother's hand, trying to instill a little warmth. "Should we be more afraid? Do you want to take over the universe?"

  Izu folded her arms. "All I want, all any of us want, is to live the way we choose, where we choose, in peace."

  "Same as us." Awandi looked up with a thin smile. "Right Chouss? No different than us."

  But Chouss was frowning at the denanos. "It's not contagious?"

  Izu sighed. "Yes, of course it is. But not that contagious."

  "So you could give it to him. You could save him."

  "Awandi." Izu threw out her small hands in a helpless gesture. "There is no guarantee that my nans would survive his immune system, or that his genetic profile is close enough to mine for them to reproduce in his cells, and even if by some miracle they did, there isn't time. It takes sixty hours at least for the nans to establish themselves to the point of being able to heal, and he doesn't have that long."

  "He's a stubborn bastard, in case you hadn't noticeed," Wen sad. "He'd hang on."

  He might not have spoken. "And even if all that weren't true, which it is, I still couldn't infect him."

  "Why not?" Awandi said like a threat.

  Izu hugged herself and said, "Because if any denanos infects any human without that human's direct, explicit and informed consent, the whole race will be in contravention of the quarantine act which allows us to live on Glory. We'd be criminals for real, without the faintest hope of colonial status, or even another, less deadly home. More to the point, we'd be without protection from all those out there-who'd kill us, or use us as drug factories, or both. I sure as Glory didn't come out here to do that to my people."

  "You sure as hell aren't going any further than the Gate if we don't-want you to go," Chouss pointed out.

  Izu studied Chouss' face, then Wen's, then Awandi's. "Someone else will come," she said, but she sounded a long way from certain.

  "This is the Gate," Wen said, sounding like Soje. "Who do you think holds the key?"

  "No denanos is going anywhere the crews don't want them to go," Chouss added, just to make it absolutely clear.

  Izu looked at them all again, for the first time with real desperation. "But you have to. My God, don't you see? This isn't just my people, it's yours, too. Awandi, tell them," she pleaded, before a look crossed her face as if she remembered that maybe Awandi wasn't the best advocate she could choose.

  But Awandi said, "I don't have to tell them. They already know. Isn't a worker on this station doesn't already know by now, thanks to Soje."

  Silence. Soje breathed, a faint liquid wheeze.

  Then Wen said, "Listen, Izu. Only thing that's holding you back is this legal problem, yeah? You'd help him if he was awake to say he wanted help?"

  She passed a hand over her eyes. The black stain on her jaw had faded to a dull blue-gray. "I guess. If I knew he wanted me to."

  "Soje? Hell, he's done just about everything else, I guess turning into a denanos wouldn't stop him."

  "Wen!" Chouss said, shocked.

  He looked up at her. "You don't think? If it were the only way he could get out of here, take his message to the Commonwealth?"

  "Someone else can go," Chouss said. "I'd go, if it came to that."

  "But Soje would still be dead," Awandi said with her brother's twisted smile. "Right Chouss? Even if he survived this beating, there'd be another, and another. Unless it was an airlock failure, or a chem tank leak, or..." She shrugged, still trying to warm Soje's hand with hers.

  "She's right. Anyway," Wen added with a taut grin, "the way things stand now, I reckon we must make up a union quorum between the three of us, and if two of us vote him union rep to the Commonwealth he pretty much has to go."

  Chouss opened her mouth to respond, but Izu broke in sharply before she could. "I don't remember saying I'd infect him. I won't. I can't."

  "Well, hell, woman, who's going to say he didn't ask you?" Chouss all but shouted.

  "Couldn't even if we wanted to," Wen added. "Seeing as how he just said he wanted you to make him a denanos." Looking from one woman's stare to the next, he grinned and added, "Didn't he, Chouss?"

  She snorted, rubbed her nose with a work worn hand. "Well sure he did. Didn't he, Awandi?"

  His hand was so cold. "Yes."

  Izu put her hands over her eyes. The skin over her jaw was once more a clear, pale ivory. "Do you realize what you'd be doing to him? He wouldn't be your crewmate anymore, or your brother, he'd be a denanos. There aren't many places he could live except for Glory."

  What had Wen said? "Better to rule in hell than to live as a leper anywhere else," Awandi said.

  Izu looked suddenly tired. "You think so? Nobody named the planet for the color of its sunsets
."

  Awandi didn't even know what a sunset was. "If it turns out he'd rather die, he can always step out the nearest airlock. I suppose space would kill him eventually?"

  Izu swallowed. "Quicker than eventually. But it's not just Glory-"

  "Izu, damn it!"

  "No. Listen to me. Somebody is going to make an informed decision. The nans could mutate, especially since they aren't tailored to his gene code, and it's an ugly way to die. The only work he could get off Glory would be in brutal conditions, in the employ of people who cared for his well-being even less than your company does for yours. He couldn't have children: denanos are made, not born. Whatever the Commonwealth decision about Glory and the Gate, he'll almost certainly not be able to come home again. Ever again." She looked hard at Awandi. "Know what you're asking me to do to him. He would be an object of hatred to millions."

  Awandi swallowed, looking away from her brother's face. The memory of her own fear was bitter in her mouth. "Chouss?"

  Chouss rubbed at the crease in her forehead. Nodded.

  "Wen?"

  "You know my vote. I wouldn't put it on him if I weren't willing to do it myself. If it were what I had to do to survive."

  Awandi looked again at her brother's battered face. Better to rule in hell... She looked up at Izu, swallowed bile, and said, "Do it."

  * * *

  Eight watches later, the independent farfreighter Pardis clamped on to the station's docking ring. Two watches after that, the order for cargo pods began registering on station com. Fourteen pods were being shifted out of delta bay. Three of them were atmosphered.

  Izu nodded, calm, when Awandi brought her the news. The denanos had scarcely slept since infecting Soje with her black, nan-thick blood. Within a watch he had ceased to breathe through pink froth, but he still hadn't regained consciousness.

  But he hadn't died, either.

  The middle of the crew's off watch saw the three of them stagger red-eyed to his cubby, each with a duffel containing gear that would get them an automatic trip through an airlock if security came along. However, security had lately been staying clear of the workers' quarters-most noticeably since Soje's beating: word had spread. Someone took the temperature of the crews and decided to turn down the heat a little. No one had any doubts that it was only a temporary measure, though, and the brutal pace of maintenance and repairs continued unabated.