by James Peters
I found the floor to be cold and rough on my bare feet, and my nose caught a whiff of air that reminded me of the smell after a thunderstorm. I grabbed a handhold, and as I entered I noticed the walls were covered in window panes filled with images, charts and words. I touched the picture of a bell-shaped object to learn the glass was rubbery and bent beneath my finger. The image blurred until I pulled my my hand back. They’ve got some fancy pictures here.
“Intruder alert!” The voice boomed from above. I looked around but saw nothing but an empty vessel. “Security squadron Delta Seven, report immediately to the loading ramp! Security, why aren’t you responding?”
“It’s because we don’t have a security force, Sarge,” Slowhand said.
“Well, paint me pink and call me a petunia. What’s happened to our security force?” Sarge asked.
Slowhand made a silly face, drooping his tongue out over his lip. “Don’t worry about it. This guy is with me.”
“What is your designation, son?” Sarge asked.
Out of habit, I began to tip my hat before realizing it was gone. “Private Lee.”
“Privately? You can speak freely here, no reason to worry about this fellow just because he’s grown a couple of extra limbs. It throws me off as well sometimes, but he’s cleared security.”
“Private Idiom Lee. I, uh, just wanted to break some glass.”
Slowhand stared at me as if he were about to smack me. “He’s a joker, Sarge. He means he wants to kill some crystals. Don’t you, Private?”
That’s right, Slowhand had said crystals. “Umm, yes, I hate those damn crystals! I want to kill every single one of them!”
“Oo-Rah! Now that’s what I like to hear!” Sarge said. “Why are you out of uniform, soldier?”
Slowhand sighed. “Sarge, he got a little too excited on shore leave. That’s why I had to go get him.”
“Ah, yes, shore leave. You should see the Medical Sergeant. Don’t want to get any invaders in your privates, Private!”
Slowhand laughed. “Thanks for that, Sarge. Have you seen Ginnamorana?”
“She left at oh-seven-thirty. Said she needed to meet with a contact regarding a job.”
I looked around to see if I could find Sarge. Perhaps he was simply around a corner or in another room?
“Did you need something?” Slowhand asked.
“I would like to find my clothes and kit.”
He pointed to a small door. “It’s in this locker. I’ll wait outside. I’ve already seen enough of you.” Slowhand said. “Don’t be messing around in there while I’m gone.”
I was relieved to find my clothes had been stored there, and it appeared they had also been cleaned. I poked a finger through a bullet hole in my pants and put them on. The strange thing was, there wasn’t a matching scar on my leg. That egg must have been some medicine. I stuck my finger through a hole in my duster and shirt as well, but no indication of an injury. After getting completely dressed and reloading my pistols, I put my hat on, even though I was inside. I just feel naked without my hat.
What have I gotten myself into? Nothing good ever comes from getting involved, yet, like a big idiot I had to get myself caught up in some crazy crap. A smart man would have ignored the scream and simply rode on to the Rusty Anvil. I could have stayed one night and left before Clyde and Darrel showed up. If they hadn’t found me there, they might have given up and gone back home. They’d still be alive and I’d not be stuck here.
I stepped out to find Slowhand yawning widely. “Can I ask you about Sarge? I didn’t see anybody. It was like I was talking to the air. Was he phasing?”
“Of course not! Sarge can’t phase, that’s something only I can do. Sarge is an A.I.”
“A.I.? Is that some kind of sailor talk?”
“It stands for Artificial Intelligence.”
I ran a finger and thumb across the brim of my hat in thought, trying to guess what that could be. “And that means?”
“Which word are you having trouble with?”
“I know what each one means, but I’ve never heard them used together as if they have some special meaning. Where is Sarge?”
“He is a construct within electronic systems. Think of him as a brain, and the ship is his body.”
“Is he alive?”
Slowhand’s face contorted as if he were in pain talking to me. “He’s not biological if that’s what you mean. But he is intelligent, and his capabilities allow us to do things others in our position cannot.”
“What kind of things?”
“This ship shouldn’t be able to create Null Space Conduits. But with Sarge onboard, we can.”
My head started to ache like I was trying to learn new math. “Null Space?”
“Don’t worry about it. It just means we can go farther and faster than the other contractors out here.”
“You’re a contractor?”
“Well, we aren’t military.”
“I’ve got a lot to learn.”
“That you do, and I tire of this conversation as I’m late for a nap. Why don’t you wait for Ginnamorana to return, perhaps over there where you can’t get into trouble?” He pointed toward a corner of the bay where some crates were propped up against one another.
“Got it. I’ll wait.” I sat on one of the cold, hard and extremely uncomfortable crates. Curiosity got the better of me, so I tried to open it. I ran my hands over the corners, top, and front, searching for a latch or mechanism.
Ginn entered the bay, and said, “Careful with that. It’s filled with fuel pellets.”
“Ginn! I’m glad to see you. Glad to see you in this form especially.” My face flushed red and grew warm.
She approached slowly, her eyes scanning me head to toe as if searching for something gone wrong. “It appears the arenea fulfilled their end of the bargain. Have you noticed any side effects?
“What should I be looking for?”
“Sprouting compound eyes or extra limbs, or perhaps producing silk from a gland on your back?”
My pulse raced. “Not that I’ve noticed.”
She silently walked around me as if looking for any extra bits growing from me. “That’s good. Of course, if the egg hadn’t been unfertilized, the arenea would have shredded you on the spot, so you’re probably good.” She led the way, walking a wide circle around Sarge.
Not know what else to do, I followed her. “I’ll admit I’m having a hard time processing all of this.”
“I suppose this would be quite a shock for you. Here’s the short version. You’re no longer on Earth.”
“Is this some kind of a joke? Tell me exactly where I am?”
“Docking bay B163.”
I gave her a side-eye glance. “That tells me nothing.”
“We are currently inside a habitable asteroid called Panadaras. It’s traveling between galactic systems.”
A sense of dread overcame me. “What in blazes are you saying?”
“We’re in space, Idiom. A long way from Earth. While you were recovering in that egg, this asteroid has made what’s called a VLR Null Space jump.”
“What does that even mean?”
“The VLR stands for Very Long Range.”
I found myself breathing faster than I should have been. “Slowhand mentioned Null Space Condolences earlier.”
“Slowhand? Condolences?”
“The fuzzy fellow with two extra arms. Looks like a surly cat mated with a sloth.”
Ginn sighed. “Solondrex, and I’m certain he said conduits.”
I leaned against the wall as my head spun. “So what does this mean?”
“It’s all very complicated, Idiom. Let’s start with the important stuff. You’re alive, and we now owe the arenea twenty thousand trilatinum credits. We’re too far away from the next system to try to earn those credits planetside, so we need to earn them here. I have a job I need you to do, and if you succeed, we’ll pay off your debt.”
“Can you at least explain how you tu
rned into that thing?”
“I don’t want to discuss that now. Once you’ve done this job and we’re clear, I might tell you more, if I so choose.”
“It sounds like I don’t have much choice in the matter.”
“None.”
Chapter Five
Shadow Hunting
“Let me get this straight.” I leaned forward and rested my forehead in my hand. “Somewhere on this planet…”
“Asteroid. Panadaras is a heavy metal asteroid, hollowed out and converted into a ship,” Ginn said, correcting me.
“Got it. Somewhere on this asteroid, there is a shadow thing.”
“A shade. Are you even paying attention? He’s a shade. You’ll recognize him because he looks like he’s always in the shadow, even in the brightest light. As you approach him, you’ll notice the air surrounding him is colder than normal.”
“Like a ghost?”
“No, for the umpteenth time, he’s a shade. You’ll have a hard time focusing on him, because of the time fluctuations.”
I shook my head. “Time fluctuations?”
“Shades have limited control of time surrounding them. If attacked, they can move faster than you can see. They also are rumored to be able to stop a person’s heart or other important organs upon touch.”
“Right. When I see a strange shadow, you want me to strap on a temporary dil…”
Ginn’s eyebrows raised in anger. “Temporal diode.” She produced a metallic sleeve from a drawer. “This goes on your forearm. The clamps will self-adjust.
“Fine, then when I have this guy in my sites, I need to grab him while wearing that thing. Then some bushwhackers swoop in to capture him and drag him off.”
Ginn’s face contorted as if she was getting frustrated with this conversation. “What you call bushwhackers are migrun security officers, but that’s the general idea. The diode will alert them upon initiation with your location, so all you need to do is hold on. The migrun are willing to pay off the arenea and cover several cycles of rent.”
“I see. So, what did this guy do? Why’s he wanted?”
“He’s a shade, Idiom. These things aren’t natural.”
“You turn into some mutant bear thing and Slowhand has six limbs, but a shade isn’t natural? Can you tell me he killed somebody, stole their beans, or ate their cat or something?”
“Idiom, when you encounter the shade, you’ll get a glimpse of your fate, and it’s always a horribly painful experience.”
“Why do the migraines want him?”
Ginn raised her arms as she talked. “They’re called migruns and how would I know? To scare their kids? I don’t know, and truthfully, I don’t care.”
“Do you trust them?”
“Nobody trusts the migruns.”
“Yet we’re capturing and handing over a spook to them.”
“A shade.”
“Whatever. Do you have a clue where I can find him? Point me in the right direction at least?”
Ginn pressed a button on the table, and a three-dimensional image appeared out of thin air. “This is Panadaras.”
“Looks like a rock with fire shooting out its backside.”
“That’s actually a decent description of it. The top seven levels are all migrun military controlled. Completely off-limits to us as well as the shade. The bottom four levels are called common areas.”
“That doesn’t even cover the top half of this rock. What’s below the lowest level?”
“Grinkun mines, for the most part,” Ginn said.
Slowhand entered yawning, his fur unkept as if he’d just woken. He raised two of his arms, pointing at the very bottom of the image of the rock. “If we’re going into that level of detail, we might as well tell him about the micro layer of element zero on the bottom. That’s what gives us the sense of gravity.”
“Sense of gravity?” I asked.
Ginn shrugged. “Didn’t the arenea give you the basics? This is all kid-level knowledge. Element zero, when properly charged creates a graviton field equal to its own mass times ten to the twenty-fourth power.” She seemed to pinch the air in front of her, and the image changed to show an interior layout. “Now we’ve gotten past first-grade physics; we are here.” She pointed.
“Docking bay B163.”
“Right.”
“I’m assuming there are saloons on this rock?”
“Of course,” Ginn replied.
“And the darkest, seediest one is where?”
“Bottom level, furthest back toward the engines. Few go in there but grinkun and fools.”
“Then I should be welcome there.” I studied the layout long enough to get my bearings, grabbed the temporal thing, and started walking.
I passed creatures my mind couldn’t comprehend. Something fluttered by me on gossamer wings as transparent as glass with a ball-shaped body without eyes or face. Once it passed, the air smelled like someone was cooking a latrine’s contents over an open fire. A metallic creature rolled along the floor, three wheels on each side formed a triangle. When it came to a threshold, the entire triangle rotated instead of just the bottom two wheels. Another creature scurried upside down along the ceiling. None of them seemed threatening, and each seemed to have their own agenda.
Two ramps led me to the lowest common level, and after a few minutes, I found the entrance to a large room filled with all manner of creatures, the rumble of dozens of voices, and some form of music filled the air. This must be the saloon.
I cased the room, looking for any weird shadow thing I could find, passing what looked like a mass of brown, writhing insects. As I stared at it they wiggled together to form the shape of a human. I realized they were copying my form when their movements matched my own. That may cause me nightmares.
I tried to act like I was comfortable here, while surrounded by unimaginable aliens of all forms, shapes, and colors. I watched a pair of glowing slugs move toward one another and merge as one, and as they did, their light changed from yellow to green.
“What’ll you have?” a green-skinned, frog-mouthed creature asked from behind a counter as soon as I entered.
“Uh, I’m a little short on trilaxitive credits.”
“No trilatinum? Surely you have something of value,” Froggy croaked.
I fished through my pockets. . “I have some silver dollars.”
“Let me see those.” He reached out and snagged one of the coins. “I’ve never seen one of those before, and rare means valuable. I’ll give you a drink for this one.”
“Thank you. What do you have?”
“Hundreds of options. What does your species require to obtain an intoxicating effect?”
My eyes took in dozens of spigots coming out of rectangular containers. “Alcohol, whiskey if you’ve got it.”
“We have muldarian milk. Careful, it’s flammable.”
“Is it safe? I won’t go blind from drinking it, will I?”
The barkeep winked one eye toward me. “It’s all natural and marked safe for ninety-nine percent of known species,”
“That’ll work.” Froggy kept the dollar, tossing it into a chest that opened after he squinted at it. When the lid popped open, a variety of coin, paper, and gems shined under the lights. A moment later he brought me a warm glass of some thick liquid.
“Here’s mud in your eye,” I said, taking a drink. It was bitter and a thick, but I’d had rotgut just as bad. It reminded me of the time my friend Jack had borrowed his dad’s “medicine” and we drank it in the barn loft. My stomach churned at the memory of throwing up all over a pile of hay.
Froggy wiped both eyes with his hand before walking away. I sipped my drink, welcoming the warmth and calming effect of the alcohol.
I caught a glimpse of a shadow in a corner. I steeled my nerves and made my approach, acting as if the table were empty. I found a stool suitable for me to sit on, looking away from the shadow the entire time. The hairs on my arms stood erect as a cold chill overtook me. The darkness wa
s hard to focus on. I’d get a glimpse of a thin, harrowed face for a moment, to see it hold still and then it would move quickly and disappear, only to repeat the process again and again. What looked like clouds of black vapor emanated from its body, while skeletal hands silently tapped the table. My heart raced in anticipation. Perhaps it was the alcohol, but sitting next to what I would have called Death himself a day ago, I just felt a sense of wonder, not terror. I had to say something.
“Oh, hi. I thought this table was empty.”
“You are most unusual. Most beings have the good sense to flee when they encounter me,” the shade said, his voice distorting. He pointed toward me with a long bony finger. “What do you want?” His face contorted to show pointed, long teeth.
This guy is bluffing. I shrugged, smiling a bit. “Want? That’s a good question. All this is new to me. I suppose all I can ask for is a safe place to enjoy my drink.”
“I sense no fear in you. Are you capable of fearing death itself?” His eyes seemed to glow like tiny candles in the distance on a clouded, moonless night.
“I’m Idiom Lee,” I said. Is this my chance? Should I turn on this temporal thing and grab his hand? I decided not to, at least not yet.
“Rhuldan Krahl.”
“Nice to meet you, Rodan Crawl.”
He seemed to laugh. his thin lips turned upward. “Are you aware that with the touch of my finger, I can end your life, Idiom Lee?”
“Listen, in the last few days, I’ve seen enough stuff to keep me from sleeping for the next thirty years. You’re no scarier to me than watching a woman turn into a creepy bear or a sixty-foot spider’s ass a couple feet from my head. Nothing personal, but my senses are probably burned to ash. That death-touch thing sounds handy, though.”
