by J. S. Morin
“Nope,” Mort said. He waggled his fingers in the air. “It fiddles and twists your mind, fools the eyes. You see what you think you should see.”
July reached for the clasp on the earring, fumbling in her haste to take it off.
Esper put a hand on her arm. “It’s fine. He’s just scaring you for fun. The earring is harmless.” She pushed her hair back over her ear, showing off her own. “I don’t even take it off to sleep. It’s just a little stud, after all. It can’t hurt you.”
“Take it off or don’t,” Tanny said. “Better question: what do we do about Harmony Bay?”
“Why do anything?” Roddy said. “You told them Carl would get back to them. They can’t touch us here on Phabian. They’ll wait until we’re good and ready to give ‘em a price.”
“A price?” July asked.
“Oops?” Esper said.
Roddy waved a hand and left the table. “Who cares? If Carl hasn’t let her in on the deal, he would have soon enough anyway. How often does he keep a secret anyway? He’ll lie his ass off to a customs patrol, then spill his guts to the first woman to wrestle him into bed without charging. He wouldn’t have sent her here if he wasn’t getting her involved.”
“Involved in what?” July asked. “All we talked about is keeping up my profile so I can get a racing gig after this contest is over. I get to keep in the spotlight so people who think I got robbed in that race don’t forget about me; Carl gets… well, what he gets.” She shrugged. “What’s all this about Harmony Bay and black market deals?”
“No one mentioned any black markets,” Esper pointed out. There were times when she was just hopelessly naive. It was like having two Kubus, one that spoke good English and one that licked the floors clean after meals.
“You circle the landing pad long enough, everyone knows where you’re planning to set down,” July said. “You really think these guys might have rigged my race?”
The hurdles against that sort of tampering were astronomical. Even if Harmony Bay wanted July to lose, it was the most convoluted way imaginable to get what they wanted. An improbable and controversial win for an unpopular xeno pilot. Exploiting a loophole in the rules. Somehow helping him pilot an asteroid cluster. Then counting on Carl caring enough about July to get riled up about her losing? A million to one said that the sitharn had won it on his own, legit or not.
But that didn’t help anyone. If they wanted July’s help—and Roddy admitted the likelihood that Carl had sent July with a plan in mind for her—she needed motivation. He sighed. “I hate to admit it, but probably. We’d never be able to prove it, but it all makes sense.”
July punched a fist into her hand. “Bastards! How the hell—”
“Doesn’t matter how,” Tanny said. “Did Carl tell you what he plans to do about it?”
“We should turn the box over to planetary security,” Esper said. “That would get us out of their way and keep them from getting whatever’s in it. Probably our best option. The rest of that contest won’t be simulators, so people could get hurt.”
“We’d also lose money on this trip,” Roddy said. “Maybe Carl wins it all, maybe he doesn’t. He might not even offer us a cut, since this is all his work. The box is terras under the pillow.”
“It won’t be,” July said. Roddy snapped a glare at her. What did she know about the contents of that box? “I mean it won’t be all Carl’s work. He wants you to get detoxed so you can pass a scan by this afternoon.”
“Me?” Roddy asked. What the hell was Carl up to? They’d been over the detox issue before. He wasn’t up for anything on Phabian that he’d need to get scanned for. Last thing he needed was compulsory alcoholism treatment. He liked booze.
“We got a buzz that contestants are getting assigned mechanics to tune their rides,” July said. “But they can bring their own if they’ve got one.”
“Me?” Roddy said, still not quite believing what he was hearing. “I’ve never worked on a Squall. I haven’t even popped the panels of a Typhoon. At least Carl can bluff his way knowing one from the other. I just keep this junker flying; I’m no race mechanic.”
“Yeah, but he trusts you,” July said.
“If you don’t, they could assign him someone on the take from Harmony Bay,” Esper said. It was the most cynical thing he’d ever heard out of her, but she was right. Roddy was the only mechanic that Carl could be sure wasn’t on Harmony Bay’s payroll.
“Fine,” Roddy muttered. “I’ll do it.” For a fleeting moment, he wondered what kind of money Harmony Bay was offering and what their policy was regarding drinking on the job.
# # #
Animals were funny. They weren’t food, Nice Lady said. They didn’t talk. But the animals at Animal Camp liked to play. Kubu liked their games. Most of the time it was wrestling. Sometimes it was running and chasing. Kubu was good at these games. They got to play in a big outside that was actually inside. The roof was glass like the flying house’s roof, but much taller. The walls were so far away that Kubu could forget that there were walls at all. A few times a day, Nice Lady or one of her people friends would call everyone over for food. Every animal got his own kind of food that he liked best. Kubu got lots.
Nice Lady had told Kubu all the names of the animals, but there were a lot of names. Long names. New words. Kubu forgot them immediately. It didn’t matter when they were playing. The bushy-furred one with the dark eyes had claws bigger than Mriy’s, but his were clumsy and he couldn’t hide them away like Mriy could; he was stronger than Kubu but a lot slower. The three orange and white ones with the black stripes were smaller and funny. They jumped and rolled around trying to pull Kubu to the ground. There was a bigger one that looked like them, but the bigger striped cat didn’t play, just watched.
Kubu made other friends, too. There were bigger versions of Roddy who didn’t wear gloves on their feet and never drank beer. There were gray doggies with skinny legs, tall enough to look Kubu in the eye but not as strong. Birdies flew overhead and sang nonsense songs that were pretty even though they didn’t have words. Lots of animals with horns on their heads were on the other side of a fence that Kubu wasn’t allowed past. None of those friends got to play with Kubu.
So many fun things. So many trees to smell and mark. So many games to play. Lots of food to eat. It was only at nighttime, when Kubu was so tired he couldn’t run anymore, that Kubu thought about Mommy. He missed her then, even though he forgot to miss her all day while he was playing. Kubu fell asleep with his head resting on his paws, staring up at the night sky through the tall glass ceiling until he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer.
The next morning, there was another new friend. This one was a person like Roddy. She wore a pink dress, which Esper had said usually meant a person was a girl. Nice Lady was a girl, but she didn’t wear a dress; she wore a blue uniform and no gloves on her feet. “Kubu, I want you to meet Mrs. Inviu of Chapath. She’s heard about you and wanted to talk to you. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Kubu replied, remembering to nod. Most people didn’t have through-the-ear magic, so they couldn’t understand Kubu. On a whim, he tried English. “Ya!” He had been practicing with Esper; she took his through-the-ear magic so he could hear the funny words and imitate them.
Mrs. Inviu smiled. Kubu liked her. “Goodness me, he does talk. Or at least he fakes it credibly. Kubu, do you comprehend what I am saying?”
“Huh?” Kubu asked. The magic sometimes made up words Kubu didn’t know. He didn’t want to lie to Mrs. Inviu by accident.
“He has limited intellectual capacity,” Nice Lady said, whispering. Kubu had good ears, and he knew if someone was whispering they were trying to keep a secret from him.
“Kubu knows secrets aren’t nice,” Kubu said.
Nice Lady smiled at him, but it was a patient smile, not a friendly one. “Talk to him like an infant.”
“Hello, Kubu,” Mrs. Inviu said. She approached and crouched to one knee, even though she was barely taller than
him standing.
“Hurro,” Kubu replied.
Mrs. Inviu smiled. Hers was a happy smile. It was funny seeing a happy smile on a Roddy-person. Roddy didn’t smile happy. “Kubu, I’d like to take you with me. I have a place even nicer than this one. You can play all day, and you can learn to talk and have things all of your own. Would you like that?”
“Is there lots to eat?” Kubu asked, cocking his head. It was hard to imagine a place nicer than Animal Camp.
Mrs. Inviu’s face wrinkled up. “This won’t do at all. Stand back,” she said to Nice Lady. Mrs. Inviu closed her eyes and talked in mumbly words like Mort used. The air turned all buzzy, but with feeling instead of sound. “My apologies, Kubu. Could you answer again?”
“Kubu said is there lots to eat?” Kubu replied. To his delight, Mrs. Inviu smiled. She understood him!
“You’re a growing boy,” Mrs. Inviu said. “There will be all the food you want. We’ll find out all the best foods for you, and you’ll eat them all and grow up big and strong.”
“Oh boy!” Kubu said. “Nice Lady, can you tell Mommy where Kubu went? Kubu wants to go eat more than lots.”
Mrs. Inviu smiled and turned to Nice Lady. “I’ll get the custodial paperwork filed this afternoon. There is no excuse for this wonderful, sentient creature to be kept as a pet on a starship.”
# # #
Roddy sipped at a cold mug of coffee. As vices went, coffee had a lot to learn from beer. Even a warm beer did the trick, but once coffee went cold it was work just to swallow. But Roddy was off of beer for now. After two hours in line at a med depot, they cleaned his bloodstream in thirty minutes. Then he took a five-hour shuttle ride out to Velocity Prime, the race facility owned and operated by Silde Slims—totally sober for the first time in as long as he could remember.
His traveling companions were a pair of humans and six other laaku—all mechanics destined for the competition. He had missed Carl’s transport by the time he was fit for duty—if he was fit for anything just then. He had a splitting headache, smelled like the antiseptic rinse from the med depot, and had a gnawing ache in his belly that the med techs had warned him was just his imagination. He missed beer already. Whiskey would have been a fine substitute, or even one of Esper’s stupid apple liqueurs. Hell, he’d have distilled some de-greaser from his tool kit.
The other mechanics talked shop, talked racing, talked politics. They tried talking to Roddy, but he offered a few choice opinions on each subject and they quit trying. He wasn’t on the shuttle to Velocity Prime to make friends. Why was he on the shuttle? Because Carl was too tight fisted to make Harmony Bay a deal and get rid of them. Because Carl couldn’t trust some random mechanic to work on anything he piloted until he had them off his back. Because Roddy was a sucker and couldn’t resist tinkering with a premium ride like a Squall.
The gray astral space blinked and reverted to oceanic black, speckled with stars. The shuttle had just passed through one of the Phabian system’s astral gates. The other mechanics crowded the port side windows. Roddy took another sip of his room-temperature coffee, wincing as he choked it down.
“Lookie that,” one of the humans remarked. “Ain’t she a beauty!” He was an outer system rube, from accent to haircut. Roddy pitied the poor racer who got him for a mechanic.
“This your first time to Velocity Prime?” a laaku mechanic in red coveralls asked.
“Yessiree,” the human replied. “Been working for years in the hayfield circuits, waiting for my chance to make the jump.”
“Welcome to the big time,” another of the laaku mechanics replied.
“Hey, buddy,” the other human mechanic said. Roddy glanced up when it registered that the guy was addressing him. “You ain’t curious?”
“I’ve seen space stations before,” Roddy replied. “I’ve seen Velocity Prime before. I don’t need to put nose-prints on the glass to see it from a shuttle craft. Just a big, low-res holo out there far as I’m concerned.”
“Must be old socks to a fella like you,” the rube said. “How long you been on the circuit?”
“I’m not sure I’m on it at all, yet,” Roddy said. He swallowed the last of his coffee and ambled over to the brewer for a refill. He had to give Silde Slims credit for at least having a half-decent refreshment dock on their shuttle. “I got roped in just this morning.”
“Sure, and you ain’t never played poker before, neither,” the rube said. He held his hands up in mock distress and affected a falsetto. “Oh my, can’t someone teach me? Yeah… you’re sellin’, but I ain’t buyin’ it.”
“Any of you boys know your pilot assignments yet?” the laaku in the red coveralls asked. “I pulled Gurdi of Renflour.”
“Nice! I got Hanzo.”
“They put me with Defnath of Hyrial.”
“I’m stuck with that snot, Jordan Myles.”
“I got picked by my pal Grixlit,” the rube said. “I owe him everything for givin’ me this shot.”
Roddy kept quiet until the rest of the mechanics had rattled off a list of names that all sounded vaguely familiar from watching the contest on holo. He sipped his coffee and savored the slow burn down his throat. No cream. No sugar. Just heat and caffeine flowing into him.
“How about you, coffee-guy?” one of the laaku asked. “Or are you just on this shuttle for the beverage dock?”
Roddy took a long, scalding swallow. His sigh was fit to light a pre-ignition sequence. He closed his eyes and leaned back. “I got requested—by Carl Motherfucking Ramsey.”
# # #
When the shuttle disembarked, Roddy got his view of Velocity Prime. The holo feeds didn’t do it justice. From the shuttle bay entrance, there was a view of two of the ten-kilometer-long tubes that ran out to the racecourses. Running lights marked tractor ship as they rearranged the asteroid fields to modify one of the courses. Free-floating spectator stands floated around the perimeter.
The main facility was glitz, flash, and tourist-friendly sparkle. Smooth as glass and fake as a politician’s smile. A crowd was waiting with a mix of Silde Slims officials, racers, and Velocity Prime staff all in clean black uniforms. It was a near fifty-fifty mix of human and laaku, which was unusual just about anywhere. Across Phabian, you only saw a smattering of humans. Across the rest of ARGO space, laaku were the minority. But just as the competition had netted out seven humans to eight laaku—and it would have been dead even if July hadn’t gotten sniped—the support contingent was populated to match. It was almost as if someone were trying to make a political statement.
A clap on the back startled Roddy and would have made him spill the rest of his coffee if it hadn’t been nearly empty. “Glad you could make it,” Carl said. He had a smug grin slapped onto his face.
“Wish I could say I was,” Roddy grumbled. “What am I doing here?” He tossed the rest of his coffee in the first receptacle he found. He needed something in his stomach with substance to it—and less caffeine. The coffee hadn’t touched his headache, and his hands were trembling.
“You’ve got paperwork and a med scan to pass,” Carl said. He leaned close and lowered his voice. “You are going pass it, right?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Roddy said. “Spare me your concern. I’ll pass. What’ve they got to eat around here?”
“Food,” Carl replied. Roddy stopped and slowly raised his eyes to meet Carl’s. What must he have looked like? Strung out on caffeine. Dry as an honest preacher. His eyes must have been eight kinds of bloodshot. “I mean, local goo, too; whatever you want it to be.”
“Get. Over. It,” Roddy said. “I like a burger much as the next laaku, but there’s nothing wrong with reconstituted nutrients.”
“They put dead laaku in it!”
“First of all, molecules are molecules,” Roddy said. “Glucose can’t tell if it was in a strawberry or Grandpa Morballo. Second, it’s an honor to carry on our people’s history. Third, it’s less than a tenth of a percent if there’s any at all, and they even produce nutrient gel
s certified fully non-sentient sourced for whackos like you. We’d all be healthier if we just installed a nutrient reconstituter on the Mobius. And why the hell are we arguing about this here instead of finding me a goddamn sandwich?”
“Go,” Carl said. “Get your shit out of the way with the datapad jockeys and the med techs. Meet me at the cafeteria in the tourist area when you’re done.”
Roddy left Carl on the landing pad of the shuttle bay and caught up with the rest of the mechanics as they headed for sign-ups or processing or whatever they called it when new guys showed up. Most of the mechanic recruits ignored him, but the rube hung back and bent low to whisper to him.
“What’s he like?” the rube asked. “Carl Ramsey, I mean.”
“Best friend I ever had,” Roddy replied. His sarcasm was lost on the rube, but that meant the rube got the true story. Pissed as Roddy might have been over this whole mess, he’d never been good with friends. He’d had a few, but eventually one blast of temper or another would drive them apart. Packing up and moving on to the next gig had gotten to be routine. Whenever he blew up at Carl, the rotten bastard would just roll with it. Carl was an unlimited supply of mulligans wrapped inside a disreputable leather jacket. “But he’s a complete asshole.”
Processing was far less painful than Roddy had feared. One by one, the mechanics answered a few questions, stood under the arch of a Class-2 med scanner, and got handed a welcome package with a uniform, datapad, and keycard to a room in the staff barracks. He kicked himself for lagging until he was last in line, but he was still out in less than an hour.
The scanner tech that verified he was alcohol free (among other things) and gave him directions to the tourist cafeteria. “Hours are shorter than the staff cafeteria when there’s no race going on. You’d better get down there before they close up. And I’d stick to reconstituted food. You need to take better care of yourself.” The tech looked so goddamn earnest that Roddy wanted to punch him. He wanted to grab the tech by the collar of his prissy powder blue uniform and shake him, screaming that all he needed was a few beers. But the tech was laaku, and there was no way to make him understand the need. Good, respectable laaku like him hadn’t ever touched a drop.