Tilted Axis

by David Ryker

  “Hold on,” Arza whispered, a little excitement in her voice. She grinned with straight white teeth and seemed youthful.

  Ward couldn’t help but smile as the train started to move forward, the magnets on the track below tilting in the opposite direction to those on the bottom of the train, pushing it along on a curtain of air and positive charges.

  The perfectly cylindrical shuttle moved forward slowly at first and oozed away from the stone-tiled platform and into a tunnel ahead that seemed to disappear into the wall, and perfect darkness.

  As it swallowed them up, Ward watched a light pass slowly by the window, listening as a loud thunk rang out behind them.

  “Sealing the tunnel,” Arza said, keeping him abreast of what was going on.

  Even inside the train, the hiss and whine of motors sucking the air out of the tube was audible. Soft jazz struck up to cover it.

  It was a few minutes later before another light went by, and Ward had become aware that they were now on a slight downward trajectory. Every now and then his stomach would twist. They were picking up speed steadily.

  The lights came quicker. Arza watched him looking at them. “Every ten kilometers,” she said gently.

  Ward kept watching, doing the math in his head. In just the short time they’d been traveling, they were already up to nearly twelve hundred kilometers an hour.

  Then it got faster. There was a kick and the train started accelerating hard. The lights started pulsing by the windows until it was a gentle strobe of black and white — too fast to even count.

  His stomach bottomed out as the train started to flatten, and then it began to climb, faster and faster.

  Behind them, the hum of a fusion engine, like the purring of a huge beast, echoed, propelling them through the near-vacuum of the tube. There was just the slightest vibration as the train hurtled along.

  The incline continued to steepen and the lights had become an endless blur. It was hypnotic, dizzying even. He was pinned to the seat, but barely had time to realize it. He couldn’t even lift his hands, his head glued to the memory foam headrest. They climbed higher and higher, faster and faster, and then there was just darkness and silence.

  Ward’s eyes took a second to adjust, and then he saw stars. He turned to look the other way, and saw the sun glimmering over the curved horizon, higher in the sky than it should have been. He realized then that they were already a hundred clicks over the surface. There was a rumble as they broke through the upper reaches of the atmosphere, and then he felt his hands go light, his hair pulling itself off his scalp.

  The train twisted slightly and Mars swam back into view below, the snowy dome of Olympus Mons tiny on the surface now. The tunnel that rose through it and spat them straight out the top at ten thousand kilometers an hour, into the upper layers of the atmosphere, wasn’t even visible.

  Along the sides of the train, hatches opened and great golden sails leafed out, little photon generators opening on the far side and filling them, using them to slow the approach into the Helios Outer Port, a geo-synched space station above the surface. It came into view on their right, a great rotating ring inside a stationary shell with long piers sticking out of it on each side, ships moored against them.

  The train swung in, decelerating as it did, and pulled up on the inner side of the station, docking fluidly.

  Ward could still feel his hair moving around over his head, and when he looked at Arza, hers was swirling like copper tentacles.

  Something nudged Ward in the back of the heels and he lifted his feet, a tray of what looked like translucent jelly sliding out from the seat. He cocked an eyebrow and stared at it, turning to watch as Arza pressed her feet into it and pulled them back out. They were coated on the bottom with the sticky substance which promptly seemed to dry up and turn clear. Arza ran her feet against the sides of the tray and clear flakes peeled off and fell back in.

  Ward did the same as Arza kicked the tray gently with her heel and it retracted back into the seat.

  She put her feet flat on the floor and stood up, her head still flowing around her head, but she didn’t float off. She stayed planted there, and Ward looked at her, mildly stunned by it.

  The pilot’s voice came over the air again and wished them a safe and pleasant onward journey, and then the doors opened into the port.

  Ward kicked off the chunks that were clinging to the sides of his boots and pushed himself out of the seat, surprised he didn’t have to stop himself from hitting the ceiling.

  He lifted one foot and felt the cling and release of magnets. Once his leg was free he struggled to keep his balance, his foot waving around in circles until Arza grabbed him and pulled him back straight, watching wordlessly as he gained his space-legs. He tried the other foot and found it rooted in place. “What the hell?”

  “Lift from the heel first,” she said, smiling and striding slowly around him, her movements pronounced, each step deliberate and careful, like she was walking along a rolling log.

  He pulled his heel up first and the magnets gave. It was a weird sensation.

  It took him a minute to get to the locker and get their bag out, almost losing it as it tried to fly over his head. He took the strap and passed it over his shoulder and across his chest, tightening it so it didn’t take off of its own accord.

  He followed her off the train, stopping at a juncture in the hallway which would have been equally at home in the Solar Club on the surface as it was there. It had all the same soft furnishings and air of overpriced arrogance, even if they were bolted to the ground to stop them floating off. It wasn’t like you could enjoy a soft chair in space — not in the same way you could on a planet at least — so it all seemed a bit pointless to Ward. But then again, his world was bullets and killers, not solar yachts and hundred-credit martinis.

  The hallway offered two directions, a slope moving up, or one moving down. The one that ran down — relative to their perspective, at least — curved and then banked so that the floor was where the left-hand wall was. Ward craned his neck around the corner to see that a door in their ceiling led sideways into a rotating deck. People were standing on the walls in there, their legs visible as the moving ring of the Outer Port turned at the right speed to simulate gravity. It was mind-bending to look at. All you’d have to do is move down the corridor, follow the bank until you were at the door, and then just step back into the gravity-simulated field. And then, it’d be just like being on Mars.

  He shook off the nausea that staring at it was giving him, and turned to see the guy with the eyebrows trudge past. Even walking in zero-g he looked out of breath. He walked up onto the wall via the curved floor, and then disappeared through the ceiling, swept away by the turning ring.

  Arza cast Ward a quick look, answering just one of the many questions he had but hadn’t asked. “Modified ferrofluid laced with nano-receptors. It’s highly magnetic — sensors under the floor detect when the fluid comes near and create a field of attraction similar to planetary gravity. It’ll keep you planted until you lift your heel, at which point it releases.” She shrugged as if it was a trivial thing. For her, it probably was. She’d grown up on this sort of stuff. Every time Ward had been to space, he’d just floated around. He didn’t really understand what the big deal with not doing that was. Though he guessed here it was probably just seen as uncouth.

  The other slope led up to a walkway that bypassed the circling ring and led to the piers where the ships were moored.

  Arza walked that way, with as much dignity as her dress and the lack of gravity to keep the hem down would allow. Her steps looked awkward in the heels and her hands were continuously smoothing the fabric onto her thighs. About halfway along she swore, said, “Screw this,” and kicked off her shoes. She took them in her hand, planting her bare feet on the carpeted floor, and then pushed off, keeping her dress clamped between her knees. Ward watched her fly down the corridor, bounding from wall to wall until she disappeared.

  He followed the red c
arpet over the top of the rotating ring below and approached the far wall, where Arza was floating, heels in one hand, a guide rail in the other. Under her feet, and in front of Ward, a section of the carpet was moving. On the wall every twenty-five meters or so, an airlock door opened onto an arm against which a ship was moored. He could see them through the windows between. All shapes and sizes. Sleek pleasure crafts like space-going sunseekers.

  There were beautiful almond-shaped yachts with classic masts for solar sails. There were Umbrella Ships — narrow-bodied tubes with wide umbrella-shaped sails around the fuselage. There were Daisy Cruisers with petalled sails jutting out from the front arranged like the head of a flower. Each one was different, each grand and impressive in its own way. He wondered what Arza’s was going to be like.

  “You coming?” she said, looking up and down the corridor for any sign of spectators.

  Ward laughed. “I don’t think swimming around like that is very Solar-Club appropriate, do you?”

  She growled at him but said nothing. He thought she was out of patience, or maybe just annoyed by the dress to the point of screaming. Ward wasn’t sure — he kind of liked seeing the irritation on her. A reminder she was human, or at least half human — that they both were. That they existed beyond the job and the case.

  She kicked off from the rail without another word, picking up speed as she followed the line of the moving carpet, past each door and names of ships stenciled in cursive next to them.

  He stepped onto the carpet instead and went along leisurely, just to annoy her, taking in each ship and name as he passed.

  After an age, he came to an open door and stepped off. The word next to it was ‘Siljan’. Ward stared at it for a few seconds. Sounded Swedish, but he didn’t know the name. Maybe somewhere Arza’s dad had gone with her mom. Maybe where her mother was from.

  Through the window, he could see the ship. It was sleek with a pronounced prow and pointed nose. It was wide at the back and bulbous. Behind the main body was a taller section, like the captain’s quarters of a ship. From it ran two long runners, arching from the back to the nose, for the sails.

  Ward let his eyes linger on it for a while, inspecting the lines. It was a beautiful craft, and despite being made for pleasure, the fusion jets at the rear told Ward it was fast when it needed to be.

  When he was done looking he walked through the door and down the gangway, following the faint smell of Arza’s perfume, mixed with the lingering scent of sweat on the air. It’d been a long day for both of them.

  Ward got to the door and stepped into the airlock, glancing briefly at the obligatory leather studded sofa next to it. They were everywhere. Ward wondered if anyone actually ever sat on them.

  He got inside the ship and hit the door seal with the heel of his hand. A second later Arza appeared from one of the doorways in the corridor, hanging on to the frame, legs crossed beneath her in the air, the loose point of her dress moving in circles between her bare feet.

  “Bag?” she said, lifting her eyebrows.

  Ward pulled it over his head and pushed it through the air toward her.

  “Thanks,” she said, snatching it and disappearing. “Get up to the cockpit and get us out of here.” Her voice echoed through the rooms. Ward assumed that the hallway she’d gone down fed into some bedrooms, maybe a living area. The ship was sizeable — at least forty meters long, and about twenty wide, and he was in one of the corridors that ran the length of the body. From what he could see there were three that made the shape of a ‘H’ and fed into all the rooms onboard.

  He couldn’t fathom how much it would cost. It affirmed his assumptions that Ferlish Arza was both well paid, and rich anyway. He hadn’t pegged Arza for it. He wasn’t sure if she was good at hiding it, just humble, or he was slipping. He didn’t like to think it was the last one, or the first.

  He started for the cockpit, heading toward the middle of the ship. He passed a trash can mounted in the wall and wasted no time peeling the jelly off his shoes and stuffing it in. It seemed that the magnetic flooring extended through the ship, but now that they were on it, he didn’t feel like annoying Arza anymore. He was back in work mode now.

  He pushed off, guiding himself through the corridors. The jacket felt tight around his shoulders and he pulled it off and let it drift away as he hung a left and headed up a stairway toward the cockpit. Ward had to smirk at the word ‘Bridge’ engraved on the wood-paneled wall next to the door.

  He went inside and pulled himself over one of the pilots’ chairs, levering down into it and fastening the harness. The steering wheel and controls were complex, but not unfamiliar. He ran his fingers over the console and stared out into space.

  A few seconds later, Arza’s voice filled the cockpit. He jumped.

  “You there yet?” Arza said.

  “I am,” Ward said into the air.

  She didn’t answer.

  “Hello?” he called.

  “Push the call button,” she said, having not heard a word he’d said. “Red one next to the wheel.”

  He found and pushed it. “Hello?”

  “You’re there,” she said, sounding a touch breathless. Getting dressed in zero-g was no cakewalk. He knew that from experience. “Ignition code — ready?”

  “Uh,” Ward mused, looking for a terminal. He flicked some switches and the dashboard lit up. A screen flipped up in the center of the console and asked for a code. “Yeah, go — wait, it’s not eight digits, is it?” he laughed.

  She did too. “Sorry, I don’t think the ignition code for my dad’s yacht was tattooed on your girlfriend’s arm.”

  “She wasn’t my—” Ward almost said, cutting himself off. The joke died in the air and he let the silence eat it up.

  “Six, five, six, three, two, one,” Arza said after a few seconds. “Once we’re away from the dock, put us into a grav-spin. There’s an option on the—”

  “Got it,” Ward said, punching in the code, glad they’d both just glazed over it. He pulled back on the steering wheel and worked the pedals, feeling the thrusters guide them gently out of the Helios Solar Club’s Outer Port.

  When they were a few clicks out, he obliged Arza and pushed them into a barrel-spin with the help of the onboard trip computer. The ship started to rotate, spinning around a center point somewhere above the ceiling of the cockpit so that the centrifugal force was pushing against the floor, and not both. The thrusters did their work and took them up to the right speed, setting a course for the Gate.

  Ward felt himself grow heavy in the chair and leaned back, watching as the stars moved in wide circles in front of him, the endless canvas of space stretching out.

  The door opened behind him and Arza walked in, dressed in her other clothes — boots, trousers. Her shirt was different, though, clean. No doubt one of her mother’s again. He was envious. He could smell himself, and not in a good way.

  “You good?” she said, sitting down next to him.

  “Piece of cake,” he said, grinning and holding his hands up. “Next stop, the Gate.”

  She stared off into space and then laughed a little. “This is crazy. If you’d have told me a week ago that I’d be throwing in with an AIA mole and stealing my father’s ship, I’d have had you committed.”

  “I prefer sleeper agent. Mole is so… unflattering.”

  “And yet…” She laughed again, the tension she’d been carrying at the solar club now draining away. It seemed that the emptiness of space was comforting for her. Out of reach, and out of mind. It was contagious. He felt more relaxed himself, as well.

  “So, what’s say we get a drink, huh? I’m sure your father’s got a well-stocked liquor cabinet?”

  “Oh, that he does. But he’d be just as pissed off if you cracked open one of his bottles of Scotch as he would if he knew we’d stolen his ship.”

  Ward shrugged. “I kind of feel like we’ve crossed that line already. I mean, right now, honestly, what’s the worst that could happen?”

&
nbsp; Before she could even answer, the universe decided just then to be cruel, and a shrill ringing filled the cockpit.

  The words ‘Incoming Call’ appeared on the center screen. And under them was a name — one that made both their blood run a little cold.

  Valvet Moozana.

  20

  “Don’t,” Arza said, snatching Ward’s rising hand out of the air.

  “He’s just going to keep calling,” he said, staring right at her fear-stricken face. “He’s already tried twice.”

  She let go of his wrist, his arm slipping through her fingers as he reached out for the screen, jabbing at the green ‘Answer’ button.

  He nodded to Arza to speak, but before she could say anything, Moozana’s voice, nearly yelling, filled the cockpit with Martian. Ward did his best to translate in his head.

  “Arza,” he said with force of an axe-swing. “Get your ass back here, right now.” He was livid. That much was evident, even across the languages.

  Ward watched Arza, waiting to see if she was just going to grip the controls and turn around, or if she was ready to make a stand. Ward was shocked by just how quickly that frightened little girl transformed. Her shoulders straightened, her jaw locked, and with both hands she pushed her hair back over her head, sweeping away the disconcerted look with it. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said stiffly, only a hint of a waver in her voice, “but we can’t do that.”

  “We?” he spat, switching effortlessly to English. “You’re not going to tell me you’ve got Ward with you?” He’d done the swap for Ward’s benefit, answering his own question before he’d even asked it. “Of course you have — he’s the one who’s dragged you along. Gods, Arza, what have you gotten yourself into?”

  She skimmed right over it. “The SB is compromised, sir,” she said diligently, and with as much respect as could be mustered for a completely insulting and insubordinate thing to say. “They shot at us at cybernetic clinic in Old-Town, and now—”