Snowburn

by Frost, E J

  The bowship moves across the rippling blue of the bay, heading out to the deep ocean. As the bowship passes the low green atoll of Outniss, the skimmer reappears. It drops out of the underside of the bowship and settles on one of the small islands. Then a tiny green finboard, the sliver of a fingernail, shoots out of the skimmer and across the waving blue to intersect with another bowship, moving south towards the green and brown humps of the Cloudlands. This bowship appeared from off the northern edge of the map. Probably from Ykimo. There’s a regular run from Ykimo to Tiv, on the North Island. Sure enough, the bowship moves ponderously past the atoll and angles toward a pile of ceramsteel and glaz buildings that mark Tiv’s perch on the Cloudlands’ north coast.

  “How often do the ships run?” Kez asks.

  “Twice a day. Morning and night. You got about two hours to get to Hot Sands to catch the next one.”

  Kez nods.

  “That’s fucked, sass,” the kid observes. “No way you can hide on a bowship. They got eyes everywhere.”

  “Underneath,” Kez and I say at the same time. She glances over her shoulder at me and I smile at her. Let her take the lead. “That’s the secret of the route. The Mirrormen figured out a way to tuck a skimmer under a bowship.”

  “Without getting carved into chum,” I add.

  Shaker nods, his beard wagging. He taps the counter a few more times and the map dissolves. The formidable prongs of a bowship rise from the counter. The ship slowly rotates upside-down. Vents for the ship’s huge airjets run down either side of the split hull. Between the vents, there’s a narrow cavity. When the ship is in the water, anything tucked into that cavity will be out of the slipstream of the jets. And out of sight, sound and sensor.

  But it’ll be a tight fit, even for a skimmer. The cavity is maybe six meters wide. Shooting that groove while the ship is in motion is going to be quite a trick.

  Shaker holds out a bullet-shaped piece of mech. “This is a transponder, synched to the bowships’ frequency. It’ll guide you right into that hole, and the bowship won’t register anything other than an echo.”

  Kez takes the transponder, turns it over in her fingers, and hands it back to Shaker. “The Mirrormen got the frequency.” At Shaker’s nod, she asks, “Why do they let you sell it?”

  “They take seventy percent.”

  “Knew I needed to renegotiate,” I murmur. Kez shoots me a grin over her shoulder.

  “Can two skimmers fit under one of those ships?” I ask.

  Shaker nods. “But the Mirrormen catch you, they take a hundred percent outta your hide.”

  “Yeah, I figured.” I glance at Banks. “How were you plannin’ to get out to the Rock tonight?”

  “Night ferry from the Circus,” the kid says. “But we can’t take the girls on it. Not tonight.”

  Not with the Mirrormen dancing, whatever that means. I haven’t heard the expression before, but I know the Mirrormen frequently hold trance-parties. I thought they were impromptu, but maybe they’re linked to the cycle of Kuseros’s moons. I also know that you don’t want to be a guest at a Mirrormen party. They’ll rape you or eat you, depending on their mood. Or both.

  “So,” Kez says. “How much is this going to cost?”

  The holograms disappear and Shaker leans forward across the counter. “Two thousand hard. And two thousand deposit, since I don’t see my skimmer comin’ back.”

  Kez shakes her head and a couple of beads woven into her dreads rattle musically. “Get real, mister. Five hundred for the skimmer, three finboards and three suits. Five hundred deposit. Banks will bring back the skimmer. Right, Banks?”

  Before the kid can back her up, Shaker snorts. “Not if the Mirrormen catch you.”

  “They’ll sell you back the skimmer,” Kez says, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “At two hundred percent. Twenty-five hundred all in, for friends of Zilly.”

  “Zilly wouldn’t like his friends gettin’ ripped off,” I say slowly. Make sure I’ve got his attention. Shaker doesn’t look like someone who is easily intimidated. He’s soft around the middle, but otherwise muscular and self-assured. The dragon tattoos say ex-military. But my size and presence are an advantage in negotiations, even with other men. “Two thousand hard.”

  Shaker looks me up and down, chews on his beard again, and finally nods. Kez unshoulders her backpack, and as she starts routing through it, I slide my hand under her hair, cup her nape, and draw her close so I can speak right into her ear. “After you pay the man, we need to find a place to practice. I’ve never ridden a finboard.”

  Kez shakes her head as she pulls two wrapped stacks of credits out of her pack and places them on the counter. “Remind me what I’m getting out of this partnership? You give away our ship. You make me pay for everything. And now I find out you can’t even surf?”

  I squeeze her neck and she squeaks. “You get me,” I growl in her ear.

  “Seems light,” she retorts. “If I’m going to give you surfing lessons, I’m going to need more than just a couple of cubes of yokan to keep me going. A double-bag of flash at least. You’re buying.”

  I’ve got a hundred or so in hard credits sealed into the lining of my vest, but she doesn’t know that. “Sure, right after you advance me off that six-four you owe me.”

  Kez looks up at me quizzically while Shaker counts the credits. “Six-four? Forty percent of thirteen is five-two. And we haven’t earned that yet.”

  “I’ve done my part. I got you here. You bargained for sixteen. I told you, high overheads on your side of the business are not my problem. If I’d known you were this bad at math, I’da demanded fifty percent to cover the accounting costs.”

  Kez sticks that little kitten tongue out at me. “You’re stuck with forty percent. And that’s after expenses.”

  “We’ll talk about this later.” I turn my head so I’m speaking directly into her ear. “Somewhere I can spank you when you start mouthin’ off.”

  Kez giggles. The urge to get her somewhere alone is overwhelming. Do I really give a shit whether we get her sister to the Cloudlands by midnight? No, but she does. She’s never dropped a package. Never jacked a run. And then there’s Tyng, who might not look too kindly on Kez if she blows his timetable. I’m still not convinced the best way to save Kez’s ass isn’t to shiv Tyng’s, but I want to keep our options open.

  Either way, it’s not looking like I’m going to get a chance to spank my mouthy kitten any time soon.

  I sigh, shift my weight to adjust the constriction of my pants, and satisfy myself with stroking the satin-smooth skin on the back of her neck.

  “This is okay,” Shaker says finally as he tucks the credits out of sight. He makes an adjustment on the side of his goggles and the haylon glow turns into a full lightshow. He flicks his headlamps over Erin and Kez, and finally turns them onto me. I blink into the dazzling glare. “So that’ll be extra-large for you.” He chuckles to himself.

  The kid and Kez snicker. Erin allows herself a small smile. I let them all amuse themselves at my expense. I don’t care what the kid and Erin think; Kez knows exactly how big I am, and I haven’t heard her complaining.

  Shaker whistles and there’s an irritated monosyllabic response from the back room. “Trista, get me three suits. A one-one-six, a one-six-seven and a two-nine.” The girl answers with a noise that sounds marginally more affirmative than her first one. Shaker reaches over and rotates part of the glaz counter inward, creating an opening from the front of the shop to the back. He gestures us through with two fingers. “C’mon, follow papi.”

  The back room is as dark and crowded as I’d expected. Shaker navigates through the stacks of equipment with the ease of great familiarity, and we follow in the glow of his goggles.

  After twenty-two meters, Shaker stops and adjusts his goggles again. Then he pushes open a wide, sliding door.

  Having already calculated what’s beyond the door from the dimensions of the building, I turn my head slightly and squin
t to shield my eyes. Beside me, Kez grunts as the sunlight dazzles her. I slip my hand under her backpack, into the small of her back, and guide her forward as my eyes adjust.

  Behind the shop there’s a permacrete dock that overlooks a wide canal. A half-dozen skimmers bob on the canal’s quiet waters. Shaker takes a control wand out of the pocket of his coveralls and points it at one of the skimmers, which lights up in response. The skimmer rotates slowly in the water, then sweeps toward the dock. When the skimmer comes within a meter of the dock, a small cable shoots out of the dock, attaches to a battered metal plate on the side of the skimmer, and reels the skimmer in to float snugly against the dock.

  Shaker hands the control wand to Kez. Shows her the command codes, which are pretty simple: open, close, lock and dock.

  “You know how to drive a skimmer?” he asks Kez.

  She glances at me. “Snow’s our pilot.”

  I haven’t driven a skimmer before, but I’ve never met a ship I didn’t like. I hold out my hand and Kez slips the control wand into it.

  “Take care of my Betsy now,” Shaker says to me. He nods at the skimmer and I see that a woman’s curvy silhouette has been holopainted on the side of the ship. Betsy is stenciled beneath the silhouette’s stiletto heels.

  “I will,” I say, and it’s a promise I have no difficulty making, since I want our deposit back.

  There’s a commotion behind us as Shaker’s daughter emerges from the back of the shop lugging three, teardrop-shaped plaz boards. Long, flipper-shaped fins protrude from the top and bottom of each board, making them an awkward bundle, and the girl drops one of the boards as she walks out into the sunlight. She throws the two other boards and three unisuits, so thin and dark they could be shadows, at her father’s feet. She collects the other board from where it has fallen and tosses it into the pile. “Get your own next time,” she snarls at her father.

  Shaker curls his lip at the girl and she retreats inside. “A little respect, eh?” he says to his daughter’s back.

  I slide my arm around Kez’s shoulders. “They become worth keeping, eventually.”

  Kez knocks me with her elbow. “You didn’t even know me when I was younger, grandpa.”

  Shaker and I share a laugh. That laugh says a lot about Shaker, including that he loves his daughter, despite her attitude.

  I hand the control wand back to Kez and help Shaker load the skimmer. It’s a small ship, three meters wide by four meters long. The hull’s thin, so the interior is just shy of the same dimensions. There’s a single open cabin, without any partitions, enclosed by a plaz canopy that’s transparent on each end and opaque in the middle. The canopy is just high enough in the middle that I don’t bang my head, and I’m careful to duck when I get near the curved sides. Blue padded benches circle the interior circumference of the ship. Crash webs hang underneath the benches, creating storage, and there are a few tie-down points in the floor for larger items. I store the finboards and Erin’s luggage under the webs, then join Kez in inspecting the controls. There are two sets of controls, front and rear. They look identical. Very basic. No control pads or wheel, just a toggle to control direction. Basic, but well maintained. I smell grease, metal polish and astringent cleaning fluid. Those smells tell me Shaker loves his skimmers, as well as his daughter. No wonder he names them.

  “Where’re the jets?” I ask Shaker.

  “Fore and aft.”

  I nod. Where I figured. Flying this well-maintained little ship shouldn’t be any problem. I glance at the finboards, secured to the floor with black webbing. Those I’m not so sure about.

  I let Kez drive. One person can fly the little ship without much difficulty, although I think it will take two of us for the trickier slide-beneath-the-bowship maneuver. Kez enjoys flying and it keeps her from sparring with her sister. Banks sits beside her at the rear controls and they dish dirt about people I don’t know. Leaving them to their catch-up, I wander to the front of the skimmer – four whole steps — where Erin sits, staring out through the transparent canopy at the shore as it rolls past. The long, golden beaches are mostly empty. Seabirds and the occasional stroller. Three months from now these beaches will be wall-to-wall bodies as cits from Hemos and Nock escape the summer heat. But for now they’re quiet, and peaceful.

  Erin holds out her hand as I sit down. I consider her open palm for a moment, then slide my hand into a pocket of my fatigues and tickle through the contents until I find the master key to the Marie. I pull the little control pad out of my pocket and drop it into Erin’s hand.

  She lifts an eyebrow.

  I lift mine back at her.

  “I didn’t expect you to give it to me now. You said once we got to the Cloudlands.”

  I shrug. “Seems t’me like you’re committed.”

  Erin curls her fingers around the metal oval. Turns her head so she can stare out to sea. At a long gray smudge on the horizon, maybe twenty klicks in the distance: the Cloudline. The Cloudlands’ security barrier. “Yes, it does,” she says.

  But she doesn’t sound so sure. Maybe she’s not as committed as she was when we collected her from Zhonnys. Maybe the doubts I’ve planted are working on her. Time to push a little more. “Did Tyng know tonight’s the Mirrormen’s cookout, or is it just an unhappy coincidence?” I ask her.

  “I have your ship.” She holds up the master key between two long fingers. “I don’t have to answer your questions.”

  “But you will,” I tell her.

  She scoffs. “Why is that?”

  Because I haven’t given her the code that unlocks the control pad, so all she’s currently holding is a pretty piece of metal. But I save that information; I might need it later. “’Cause she’s still your sister.” I nod at Kez. “An’ you know I’m the best chance for her, and you, gettin’ to the Cloudlands alive. So tell me what I need to know.”

  She shrugs. “I don’t know.”

  “Best guess.”

  “My guess would be yes, he does. Kison’s very well-informed. But it’s just inconvenient timing. He wants me to succeed.”

  “Does he?” I lean forward on the bench, rest my elbows on my knees. There’s a little vibration from the jets as we fly; enough that sitting up straight and letting that vibration rattle up my spine is uncomfortable. “You an’ your sister gettin’ raped, cooked an’ eaten by a bunch of MAO-A psychos? Seems like the kinda revenge he might find sweet.”

  She lifts her upper lip in a small snarl. “Don’t presume to know anything about Kison.”

  She says his name defensively. Protectively. The way Kez says Nev’s name, Ape’s, and maybe mine. No question how Erin feels about Tyng. Only question is, does he feel the same way about her?

  “No? He wouldn’t put you into that kinda situation?” I ask, feeling around this possible point of leverage.

  Her chin quivers. Firms. “Whatever the situation, I can handle it.”

  That was not a no. Not her response so much – because Kez has those moments of bravado, too – but the body language behind it. Body language that says that Tyng has put her into dangerous situations before, without any concern for her safety. “Yeah? How’re you plannin’ to deal with the Mirrormen?”

  She tilts her head at me. “How are you?”

  I draw my kukris out of their boot-sheaths and cross the blades in front of her.

  “How many can you kill?” she asks speculatively. She’s watching me instead of the shore now, but her eyes don’t light up at the sight of my very fine blades. Not a razorgirl.

  I’ve never counted how many I can kill at once, so I pick the most important number. “All of ‘em.”

  She rolls her eyes. “So you say.”

  “I don’t say anythin’ I don’t mean.” Which is the truth. Another thing I like about life without chains: not having to lie. I lied all the time in the hole. Sometimes to throw the whitejackets off my scent. Sometimes to conceal what I had. Most times just to fuck with people’s heads. Now that I’m free, I don’t need to l
ie, and generally, I don’t. “I’ll let you mop up, though.”

  “You’re such a gentleman,” she says caustically. “Has my sister seen you in action? Does she know what she’s sleeping with?”

  “Yeah. You tryin’ to find a wedge to drive between us?” I smile and shake my head. “Waste of time.”

  “Why is that?”

  I sharpen the kukris against each other. Let myself brag a little. Feels good. Can’t remember the last time I had something to brag about. “Your sister’s got a serious jones for me. Knows me inside out. There’s nothing you could tell her that would put her off.”

  Erin looks sharply at her sister. Kez has been listening, even while she’s been gossiping with Banks, and meets Erin’s glare. Kez smiles. It’s not her usual mischievous grin. This is a triumphant smile.

  I like that smile.

  Erin redirects her glacial glare. “And that doesn’t bother you?”

  I shrug. “I take it as a compliment.”

  “Why? Because she’s young?” Erin sneers.

  “An’ hotter than hell.” Erin’s not old, but if she’s my age and she’s never really had anyone, those years will feel longer than they are. I grind them into her. “You have a great sister. Smart. Beautiful. Loyal. Too bad you don’t know her.”

  “I know her a great deal better than you.”

  “No, you’ve just known her longer.”

  “Really? How’d she get that scar on her back?” I know, but I don’t say anything. See what she’ll tell me. At my silence, she gives me her feral grin. “She doesn’t talk about that, does she? How the NoBos caught her and made her put on a show, before they all took their turns on her? You didn’t think you were the first, did you?”

  I slide the kukris back into my boots. “You think tellin’ me your sister was raped by a pack of sand-rats will put me off?” I’m not sure I’d believe it, anyway. Ape would have mentioned it during our conversation in the taxi, when he was feeling me out. And I’ve been with a rape victim. It took weeks to get Mouse to trust me; longer before she’d let me do anything more than kiss her. She was never playful, never adventurous, in bed. All that was stripped away by what Shiller did to her. Kez isn’t anything like that.