by J. S. Morin
“Are you daft, girl?” Mort asked.
Esper tossed the holovid remote onto the unoccupied cushion of the couch. “No, but I’m just getting tired of feeling trapped behind death’s door. I thought that whole ‘faking my death’ thing was clever at the time, but I wasn’t thinking just how little a dead person is allowed to do.”
Mort scratched his chin and squinted one eye at Esper. “All right. Let’s work around the system. We’re going sightseeing.”
# # #
July was gone, whisked off into one of the interview rooms. Carl’s solo wait wasn’t long before he was brought into a different one. The place was Phabian glitz at its finest. Top level city view, looking out at the interconnected high rises, tubes, clouds, and sub-orbital floating residences. Every surface of the walls, floor, and the desk were display-quality flat panels. Carl’s two interviewers were a laaku man and a human woman. He had light brown fur and wore a dark suit and display-panel glasses; she had the middle-aged all-cosmo look—with all the wrinkles smoothed too flat—and sported a Silde Slims branded flight jacket. The laaku had his prehensile feet up on the desk.
“Bradley Carlin Ramsey,” an overhead speaker announced him.
The laaku glanced down at a datapad. “Sit. We don’t have all day.”
Green footprints appeared on the floor, marking a path from Carl to a chair on the opposite side of the desk. He took two steps before he realized the footprints were the same size as his boots, and matched his gait perfectly. He broke stride to avoid them and took five clumsy steps to the chair as he and the floor tried to outguess one another.
“Creepy-ass floor,” he muttered, glaring down at it as he sat.
“So, Bradley—or can I call you Brad?” the human woman asked.
“I go by Carl, actually,” Carl replied.
“Well, Carl, I’m Stacy Kain, and this is Torim of Daihan. We’ll try to keep this brief, since we still have a lot of applicants.” Her eyes were sunken. Carl couldn’t blame her with all the slobs she must have dealt with today.
“Take all the time you need,” Carl replied. “I’m worth the wait.”
“Says here you’re Earth Navy, retired,” Torim said. “But all I can access is your rank and service dates, plus a couple certifications.”
Carl scratched behind his ear. “Yeah, that’s about all that’s not classified. But you do the math. I made Lt. Commander inside five years, and I was a combat flight instructor for the Typhoon class fighter.”
“Ever flown a Squall?” Stacy asked.
“No, but I’ve raced Typhoons for training purposes and never had a student beat me,” Carl replied.
“There are some key differences between the two ships,” Stacy said with a condescending smile. “The power-to-weight ratio, for starters, not to mention the lack of shields. There are also—”
“They stripped out the quick-shock gravity stabilizers for ones that take higher G-turns,” Carl said. “Makes sense because you’re not taking fire. As for the handling, a Squall’s going to be a moonlit stroll. No one learns to dance in combat boots who can’t do it in sneakers. Sure, I’ll have to get the feel for it, same as I’ve had to get the feel for losing my port-side maneuvering thrusters in a dogfight. I just hope I can keep motivated without target lock alarms blaring in my helmet. If I don’t get lulled to sleep, I think I’ll manage.”
“There’s more to this contest than just piloting,” Torim said, taking advantage of Carl needing to catch his breath after that diatribe. “This is a show. We need an angle. So maybe you’re a hot shit pilot, maybe you’re not. Why are slack-jaws going to want to watch you fly? What’ve you got that’s interesting about you?”
“You mean aside from having a classified military record?” Carl asked. When blank looks answered him, he shrugged and continued. “Well, my hair is blue because I was cursed by an azrin sword master, I play a little guitar, and I’m currently single. Depending how things go after dinner tonight, I may be dating a fellow contestant from London Prime by the name of July Monroe.”
Stacy looked to Torim, not showing the slightest reaction to Carl’s spiel. “I’m a little concerned about his age.”
“It is worth—”
“Bullshit,” Carl snapped. “If this was kiddie time, you should have said so in the ads. If these glider munchkins can’t claim as much simulator time as I’ve logged in combat, fuck ‘em. Let ‘em come back again in ten years when they’ve learned how to fly. You won’t catch me taking it easy on any of this sorry lot. I spent years tormenting pilots their age.”
Torim turned to Stacy and lifted his dark glasses. They exchanged a glance. “You’re in.”
# # #
“I feel out of place,” Mriy said softly. “Like a giant.”
“Get used to it,” Roddy replied. They strolled through a public concourse in the heart of Kethlet. Without a human in sight, Mriy was a half-meter taller than anyone around, even in her habitual slouch. In laaku-heavy areas, she wasn’t going to see many creatures her own size.
Mriy cocked her head. “Why are you speaking Jiara?”
“You finally noticed?” Roddy asked. “You’re getting too used to that earring’s translations. I’ve been speaking your language since we got off the ship.”
“But I would have thought—”
“That I’d speak Jiara like you speak English?” Roddy asked. Mriy’s idioms grew childlike in simplicity when she tried them at all in English, and her vocabulary shrank by a factor of 100. It was a dead giveaway as to whether she was speaking translated Jiara or plain English. “Sorry, sister. Your brain’s wired for hunting; mine’s made for learning. Nothing personal; just genetics.”
Mriy’s hackles rose, and Roddy chuckled. “What? Tell me you couldn’t eat half the laaku in this plaza like popcorn before someone stopped you. You’re getting pissy over speaking a few xeno languages like a native?”
“You’re insulting my intelligence,” Mriy replied. “My people aren’t savages.”
Roddy gave a gentle slap to the back of Mriy’s hand. “Show me those claws and say that again.” Rebels among her own azrin people had declawed her and pulled her teeth. Anything sharp about her now was thanks to laaku medicine and replacement implants.
“I’m still not a dumb brute.”
Roddy shrugged. “It’s all relative. Laaku wizards are shit compared to humans. Just look at Mort; we got no one like that. No laaku could fight an azrin without our thousand-year advantage in tech. We don’t live as long as tesuds—err, sorry if that’s a sore subject.” Laaku had a similar lifespan to humans, but azrins lived only half as long. Roddy had only thought of the tortoise-like race because one had just exited a spa ahead of them. “Point is, brains and unity are what made us. Can’t blame us for being best at what we evolved to be.”
“You’re lucky this is a green-sec planet, or I’d tear your arms out by the roots,” Mriy grumbled.
“We’re two minutes from a Class 1 med facility. You could tear my head off, and they’d fuse it back on,” Roddy replied. “Civilization. Gotta love it.”
“Why don’t you just move back here, if it’s such a plentiful hunting ground?”
“No booze for the locals.”
Mriy stopped, and Roddy paused and looked back. The azrin had a wicked grin, showing off her newly implanted teeth. They looked just like the old ones, thick and long and sharp enough to puncture a smart-mouthed laaku mechanic to the bone. “What?”
“Maybe I should tell the local sheriff you’re a drunk,” Mriy said. “How would your mighty brain like that?”
“Knock it off,” Roddy said through clenched teeth. He grabbed Mriy by the wrist and tugged her along. Despite a difference in mass that could have let her stand her ground like a mooring clamp, she followed, shaking loose after two paces. “That’s not funny. We’re gonna get a little local flavor, then head back to the Mobius. I’m dry enough right now as it is. Sorry if… I’m a little stretched out right now. I don’t mean it.”
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Mriy nodded a guarded acceptance of his apology. “Was the food a lie? They can really make any food taste like any other? I might like to try ice cream meat.”
“Ice cream that tastes like beef. Bacon that tastes like mocha chocolate swirl. We reconstitute raw nutrients with the best modern flavor and texture science in the galaxy. I’ve been trying for years to get Carl to let me install a laaku food reconstituter instead of that old processor. I figure I could use another voice on my side.”
“Why won’t he let you?” Mriy asked.
“Ah, here we are,” Roddy said. The sign identified the establishment as General Food Station: Kethlet 0013. A steady stream of laaku diners trickled in and out to the surrounding concourse. The glass and polished metal exterior had all the charm of a postal depot, but most importantly it was in a district where Roddy didn’t know anyone.
“What’s Carl got against laaku food?” Mriy persisted.
“Give it a try first,” Roddy said. “I don’t want to bias you.” He stepped inside, and Mriy followed.
# # #
Esper stood at the bottom of the cargo ramp, lacing and unlacing her fingers for want of something productive to do with them. Standing beside a bedraggled deep-space freighter, she felt out of place. Mort had said to dress up, and thanks to the nice pirates of the Poet Fleet, she had the means to comply. It wasn’t often she had cause to wear heels, but they went well with the black, elaborately embroidered dress. Her leather jacket was mostly a pair of sleeves and wouldn’t have closed in the front without considerable discomfort, but it added a bit of modesty to the rather revealing garment, and matched better than she’d anticipated. Some faux-diamond jewelry and an up-do rounded out the ensemble. But she didn’t feel like she and the Mobius belonged within sight of one another.
Footsteps from the cargo bay caught her attention. “You look like you robbed a boutique,” Mort chided her. “Relax. No, don’t slouch, just take a deep breath and tell yourself you do this sort of thing all the time.”
Esper nodded and breathed deeply. Unclasping her hands, she stretched her arms to her sides and looked out through the domed glass of the hangar. It was a bright blue sunny afternoon, with wisps of cloud drifting overhead. Phabian’s weather was legendary, even tamer than Earth’s and just as artificial. But it was still gorgeous.
“That’s better,” Mort replied. His footsteps clanged down the cargo ramp as Esper watched the sky. “Let me have a look at you. Nice. Very nice. I’m no fashionista, but you’ll turn heads for sure.”
Esper felt her face flush. “Maybe I should change. I—”
She noticed Mort. The cargo hold had been dark against the brightness in the hangar, so Esper hadn’t gotten a good look until he stepped around to look her up and down. He was dressed in a suit, all black from collar to shoes. It wasn’t the standard business suit identified as humanity’s cultural attire in xeno-produced holovids. He wore a flat, short-collared, hip-length coat with a single row of thumbnail-size buttons, with slacks to match. It was all cut to fit like his silhouette. She could see a distorted reflection in his shoes.
But more than his clothes, it was the Mort inside that startled Esper and made her think a stray improper thought or two about the wizard. He was clean shaven, with a whiff of aftershave musk lingering on him, a heady scent from a half meter away. There wasn’t a trace of gray in his hair, and the tangled mess was combed straight back and slicked down, glistening in the sunlight. He looked more like a planetary official than the grumpy, foul-mouthed wizard she’d grown accustomed to.
“You what?” Mort asked. As Esper struggled to decide what words came next, he waved a dismissive hand. “Forget it. You look perfect. We’re not trying to blend in with the local drones today. You were getting space fever—odd thing, planetside—so we’re having a day out. Tanny’s not around to warn you against the impractical and the frivolous, so we’re going to have an impractical, frivolous day.”
Esper swallowed. “But I… it’s just…”
Mort closed his eyes and sighed. When he opened them, he hooked a gentle finger beneath Esper’s chin and guided her eyes to meet his own. “You’re flushed like a schoolgirl. God only knows what you had to bottle up in that convent, but it’s spilling out through your pores. No apprentice of mine is going to comport herself like that. I’ve got children a few years older than you. Chew on that if it helps.”
“I wasn’t! I mean, I’m not. Your apprentice, that is.” Mort was being awfully presumptuous. He cleaned up better than she imagined; that’s all.
“No, but you need a cover story,” Mort said. He held up a hand in front of Esper’s face. A tingling sensation spread over her skin, better than any of her fancy soaps or facial ointments could manage.
“Was that a disguise?”
“No, a spell to fuzz up the science cameras,” Mort replied. “Common enough for wizards in scientific lands like this. As a rule, we don’t appreciate being tracked and cataloged wherever we go. Won’t raise an eyebrow, neither laaku nor human. Now, let me have a look at those hands.”
Mort didn’t wait for them to be offered, but grabbed Esper’s hands and scanned them, fronts and backs. “Good enough. No grease or nicks from Roddy’s spare parts. No conspicuous calluses. Good wizarding hands.”
“You can thank a shower, sturdy gloves, and Île de Plaisir hand lotion,” Esper replied, snatching her hands away from the wizard’s grasp. “Can we get going now?”
“You can walk arm in arm with me, or a pace behind me on my right,” Mort said. “Don’t argue with me in public—bitch at me later all you want, but save it up. If anyone asks a question you don’t want to answer, just look to me. I’m no Carl, but—”
“Or we’d have left already,” Esper snapped. She pressed her lips tight and felt the warmth spreading across her face again.
“…but I can talk our way past any troubles we should meet,” Mort finished. “You’re pent up and boiling over. Fine. We’ll leave. Just bear in mind that Carl’s way causes more troubles than it solves.” Mort gave a meaningful glance down the front of Esper’s dress. “And he’s not half the gentleman I am.”
As they set out into Kethlet, Esper stayed a pace behind Mort, at his right hand. There were more humans mixed among the laaku than she had expected. Though she never asked, Mort had likely chosen their route to keep them among as many of their own kind as possible. And while she had been self-conscious about her attire at the outset, Esper found that she was conservatively dressed by comparison to the women she saw. Dazzling colors were the least of her competition. Chromaglow fabrics and wrap-around flatvid displays drew the eye from one woman to the next. A few outfits appeared to be entirely holo-projected onto the wearer. She was feeling like a priestess again by the time they’d been gone an hour.
They visited an art museum with works native to the Kethlet region. Iron sculptures coated in orange oxidation had been untouched for centuries. An entire wing held mechanical artwork that moved under its own power. Strangest to Esper’s eye were the simple wooden blocks, carved in geometric shapes. They were displayed in careful arrangements, with flatvid placards that told the significance of the configuration. No matter how hard she tried, Esper couldn’t look at eight cubes, a sphere, and a triangular pyramid, and see ‘harmonious inclusion.’
Mort brought her to a live theater production of a traditional laaku stage play. Though the actors all spoke in one of their native languages, Esper’s charmed earring provided the translation of a beautiful story of love, loss, and hope amid an ancient plague. Hardly any humans were in attendance, and she made an impression on a few laaku who wanted to discuss the play with her and Mort during intermissions.
By dinnertime, she had taken to walking arm in arm with Mort, discussing the wonders they had shared while exploring the city. Neither of them ever checked a datapad or public terminal. When they wanted to find a place, they stopped one of the locals and asked for directions or advice.
“Where can we find a
nice dinner?” Mort asked an elderly couple of laaku, holding hands as they strolled. Their clothes looked expensive, but so did practically everyone’s. Mort had clued her in early on, that when asking questions, you needed to seek the proper source for the answer you wanted. “Laaku cuisine, but not a food terminal. Someplace with atmosphere.”
“Bengan’s,” the old woman replied. “Not as fussy as the human-food places in the Mogwel District, mind you, but they’ll treat you like doctors.”
“Thank you,” Mort replied with a low bow. She knew from Roddy that lowering yourself to near-laaku height was a sign of respect.
As they parted ways with the elderly couple, Esper leaned in and asked. “Like doctors?”
Mort shrugged as best he could with Esper holding one of his arms. “Laaku haven’t had any lords or kings since humans were living in caves. They value learned professions, though they’re a bit poke-and-wobble on how that applies to wizards. Scientific bias is a burden we must endure.”
Bengan’s, it turned out, was fancier than Esper had taken from the old couple’s description. It was a tower that jutted from the interconnected cityscape, with stacked rings of dining areas that rotated throughout the meal, giving a view of the planetary surface. As she gawked at the spire through the overhead glass, a human host stopped them at the door.
“Your reservation?” the host asked. It was the perfect double-edged question. One edge was feather-soft and deferential, eager to please. The other carried the hard, sharp assurance that without such a reservation, there was no place inside Bengan’s for them.
As he had at every other stop along their journey, Mort held up the palm of his hand. His fingers spread loose, as if he held something soft and delicate. Within the span of his fingers, an image appeared, like a holo with no projector. It was a ‘C’ with a bolt of lightning through it, the mark of the Convocation. “We’d like something on the highest level available.”
The host nodded. “Of course, sir.” But then his attention turned to Esper, watching her with eyebrows raised.