Unreconciled

by W. Michael Gear

  “So, what do you think they’ve become?”

  “Smashana Kali.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I think they have turned themselves into the most terrible manifestations of the Hindu demon-goddess, Kali. The black goddess who is descended from endless time, who decapitates her victims, drinks their blood, and wears the heads of the dead around her neck. By devouring her victims, she purifies them, and the world is reborn.”

  “And what happens to Kali in Hindu texts?”

  “She only ceases her rampage when she steps onto Shiva’s chest.”

  “This is the twenty-second century! And we’re talking cannibals? Like some primitive forest tribe?”

  “Just because it’s the twenty-second century, what makes you think human beings have become a different animal? Because we have The Corporation and space travel? People are still fundamentally nothing more than technologically sophisticated chimpanzees.”

  “Back in Solar System we could reprogram them at a psychiatric facility.” Kalico mused. “Treat the madness.”

  “We’re not in Solar System.”

  “Shig, you’re the professor of religious studies, the proponent of ethical behavior, what do we do with them?”

  “I haven’t a clue.”

  3

  The captain’s lounge aboard Ashanti seated six. Located just down the central corridor from Astrogation Control, the lounge was a cramped room jammed against the curve of the Command Deck hull. One of the few perks of “officer’s territory,” it even had a small galley on the back wall. Not that ten years of ship’s time had left many choices except two: tea and ration.

  Miguel Galluzzi—cup of said tea in hand—nodded to the rest as he entered, stepped around to the rear, and settled into the worn duraplast of his captain’s chair. On the one working holo, an image of Donovan spun against a background of stars.

  In their long-accustomed seats, First Officer Turner sat at Galluzzi’s right, Benj Begay on his left. Second Officer Smart had the watch, so his chair remained empty. Michaela Hailwood hunched in the seat beside Begay’s. Finally, at the far end near the door, Derek Taglioni slumped in his usual place.

  Galluzzi took their measure. Begay was descended from Native American stock. He was forty-five now, kept his hair in a bun tied tightly at the back of his head. His dark eyes were thoughtful as he fingered the line of his blocky chin.

  Turner, who stood six-foot-five, was now in his fifties. A faint English accent still lurked in the man’s speech. Galluzzi couldn’t be sure, but Turner’s washed-out blue eyes seemed to grow paler by the year. Like all good spacers, he kept his head shaved.

  Galluzzi’s gaze lingered on Michaela Hailwood, forty-seven. The lanky black-skinned woman had been born in Apogee Station. A curious origin for someone who would become chairperson of the Department of Oceanography at Tubingen University on Transluna. She headed the group of scientists dispatched aboard Ashanti to establish the first research station for the study of Capella III’s oceans.

  Still slumped in his chair, Derek Taglioni had laced his fingers together. The man’s genetically engineered yellow-green eyes fixed on Galluzzi. Turns out that designers of fine haute couture on Transluna didn’t tailor their snazzy garments for longevity; Taglioni’s exotic clothing no longer looked natty and sharp. Derek, Dek for short, might have been in his mid-thirties, but given the medical benefits of being a Taglioni, who knew? Today his sandy-blond hair was combed over. The guy looked classic; his chiseled jaw even featured a dimple in the chin.

  In the beginning—being a Taglioni—Dek had been a real self-inflated prig. Imperious. Demanding. But something about survival, about realizing that no amount of power or wealth made him any more valuable than a lowly hydroponics tech, Class III, had wrought remarkable changes in his personality and approach to life. The condescending arrogance had begun to break down during the transit. For years he’d even shaved his head like crew. But during those long months when it looked like they were all going to die? That’s when something fundamental had changed in Taglioni.

  Amazing what kind of man can evolve when he’s knocked off his high horse and face-first into the shit.

  Galluzzi stared down into his cup of tea. Not like the real thing, mind you, but a green liquid made from boiled spinach, algae, and leaves. Stuff that still grew in hydroponics, though the nutritional content was down considerably from the early days.

  They all showed signs of malnutrition.

  “What do you think?” Galluzzi asked. He was long past formalities with these people.

  Benj, still fingering his chin, said, “Aguila’s not like any Corporate Supervisor I ever knew. When I saw the scars, it scared hell out of me. Like she was one of the Unreconciled. Sent a shiver right up my spine.”

  Michaela placed her long-fingered hands flat on the table. “She didn’t bat an eye when we told her we sealed the transportees on Deck Three. Not a single protest. Nothing about what the contractual implications might be, or what it was going to cost The Corporation in litigation.”

  “Tough lady,” Turner said thoughtfully. “Sounds like Cap III has fallen on hard times while we’ve been in transit. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m not sure how the crew is going to take this. We’ve sold them on the belief that when we reach Cap III, it’s going to be like a paradise.”

  Benj chuckled. “Hey, just being out in fresh air, under an open sky, is paradise.”

  “After what we’ve been through, you’d think the universe would cut us a break.” Galluzzi sipped his tea. Tried to remember what it was supposed to taste like. Nothing had much taste anymore.

  Turner shot him a sidelong glance. “I think you just got your break, Miguel. Aguila didn’t immediately order you arrested for what we did. I thought she’d take that a whole lot harder.”

  “Something’s not right,” Benj added. “We lost two thirds of the transportees, and what’s left are man-eating monsters. Drop that kind of bombshell on a Corporate Supervisor? You expect to let loose a shitstorm.”

  “She almost took it as a foregone conclusion.” Galluzzi rubbed his face, thankful that his hand was no longer shaking. Damn, he’d been on the edge. Like the others, he’d expected to be relieved of command, pilloried, maybe even charged with mass murder.

  He glanced at Taglioni. Had hoped that if Corporate was going to flush him down the shitter, that Dek would be his only chance. Betting on a Taglioni? It showed how desperate a man could be.

  “Think it’s some kind of political gambit?” Begay wondered. “You know. The kind of intrigue the Board is into: layers within layers. Maybe we’re suddenly pawns in some complex game she’s playing. Like she’s going to use our failure to keep the transportees alive as a means to destroy some adversary.”

  Was that it? Galluzzi’s stomach began to roil. He felt the first tremors in his hand. “I just wish it was all over.”

  “Hey, Miguel,” Michaela told him, “you’re getting ahead of yourself. We all are. Think, people. There’s going to be an inquest. There has to be. You can’t just seal three hundred and sixty people into a confined space, let them mutilate and eat each other, and expect to walk away without some sort of questions.”

  She glanced around the table. “We’ve known since the beginning that a day of reckoning is coming. In the meantime, we stick together. Let’s not forget that by doing what we did, we got the ship to Cap III. And we did it with most of the crew alive. The entire Maritime Unit is not only alive, but with the kids there’s a lot more of us than spaced from Solar System.”

  “Steps had to be taken,” Benj agreed. “Remember what it was like? We all agreed that if we made it, we’d stand together. That what they did to one, they’d have to do to all of us.”

  “Here, here,” Turner muttered, watery eyes fixed on infinity.

  Benj turned to Taglioni. “Dek? Your word is goin
g to carry the most weight.”

  Taglioni’s lips bent into a thin smile. “You’re assuming my family’s still in power.”

  “Aguila asked specifically if you were aboard,” Benj reminded.

  “That has as many ominous interpretations as it does positive ones, Board politics being what it is.”

  “Let’s wait and see,” Galluzzi told them. “If it comes down to it, and there has to be a sacrifice, it is my responsibility.”

  “You’re not doing that holy martyr thing again, are you?” Michaela asked. “We didn’t like it the first time you pulled that shit.”

  He smiled, sipped his tea, looked around at the familiar faces. He’d alternately shunned these people, loved or hated them, sought their company, and periodically despised them. Between them, they had no secrets. Well, maybe but for Taglioni. Not that he hadn’t done more than his share, pulled more than his weight, but he’d always kept himself apart. Maintained a distance.

  “No martyrdom. It’s just that the end, at last, is in sight. Mostly, however, it’s because after what we’ve been through, if they need a sacrifice, I don’t give a damn. I’m just . . . tired.”

  Taglioni was watching him with those piercing yellow-green eyes. Even after all these years, they still sent a shiver up Galluzzi’s spine.

  There would be a price. There had to be.

  4

  The tavern in Port Authority was called The Bloody Drink; the moniker dated back to a more sanguine period in the colony’s early existence. Most folks just called it Inga’s after the proprietor. Inga Lock was a large-boned blonde woman in her forties with thick arms, a no-nonsense disposition, and a talent for brewing, distilling, and producing extraordinary wines from local grains and fruits.

  Inga’s tavern had originally been housed in one of the midsized utility domes, but as it was the planet’s only public house, the crowds had necessitated expansion. Since the dome couldn’t be enlarged—and with Donovan being a mining planet—Inga had dug down to create the cavernous stone-floored room that now sported locally made chabacho-wood tables, benches, chairs, a restaurant, and on the west end, the curving bar from which Inga dispensed her liquid refreshments.

  A ramp in the storeroom behind the bar led up to street level and the two-story stone building that housed her distillery, brewery, and winery. The upper floor she rented out to itinerant miners and hunters—called Wild Ones—who might be in town.

  On the righthand side of the bar, Security Officer Talina Perez perched atop her usual stool. She wore mud-spattered and smudged quetzal hide: a rainbow-color-shifting leather made from one of the native predators. Next to her knee, her rifle was propped against the bar. Hung from a strap around her neck, a floppy leather hat flattened Tal’s raven-black hair against her back.

  “Hard day?” Inga asked as she approached with her rolling gait, a bar towel over her shoulder. Talina’s glass mug—filled with a thick stout topped by an inch of creamy head—was in Inga’s right hand. This she deposited on the scarred wood with a thunk.

  “Step Allenovich and I spent the last three days out in the bush, working the breaks leading into the Blood Mountains. Tracked Whitey that far. Storm hit. Winds were too strong for the drones. Had to wait it out. Once we could fly again, we’d lost the sign.”

  “You look all in.”

  “I’m eating whatever you got, sucking down a couple of glasses of stout, and then I’m off to sleep for a week.”

  “You sure it was Whitey? One quetzal pretty much looks like another.”

  “We managed to get a drone right on top of him. Crippled left front leg? Couple of bullet scars on his hide? Slight limp in his right leg? Gotta be him.”

  Down in Talina’s gut, Demon—piece of shit that he was—hissed in approbation at the mention of Whitey’s escape. But then Whitey’s molecules where part of what made Demon such an insufferable beast.

  Talina could feel Rocket shift on her shoulder—the little quetzal’s presence as illusory as Demon’s. In the words of Talina’s ancient Maya ancestors, she was Way. Pronounced “Wh-eye.” A spirit-possessed dreamer, transformed, one-out-of-many. Her quetzals were Wayob. Dream essences. Spirits who lived within.

  “When it comes to Whitey, you’d know. You were the one who shot him up.” Inga wiped the bar down with her towel before slapping it over her shoulder. “Food’ll be up in a minute.”

  Tal tossed out a five SDR coin.

  “You’re still up two fifty on your account, Tal.”

  “Put it toward my tab. Day might come, Inga, when I’m caught short.”

  The big woman snatched up the coin. “Yeah, as if that would ever happen.”

  “You forget, I have a habit of pissing people off in this town.” And, hero to them she might be, but Talina Perez was still a freak, infected as she was with quetzal TriNA.

  “This far down the line, Tal, it would take some real doing for you to make it permanent.” Inga shot her a wink and retreated down the bar to note the amount on her big board where she kept her accounts.

  Talina chuckled under her breath. Inside, she was what the Maya called pixom—of two conflicting souls. In her case, that of killer in opposition to that of protector.

  Funny thing, to travel thirty light-years across space in order to discover that her ancient heritage was the only way to make psychological sense of who she had become after quetzal molecules began playing with her brain.

  Down the bar, Stepan Allenovich, mud-spattered himself, was calling for whiskey. Three days in the bush hunting quetzal, and the lunatic was going to spend the rest of the night drinking and singing. Then he’d no doubt wander over to Betty Able’s brothel where he’d drink some more, pay to screw Solange Flossey, and finally make his way to The Jewel casino. The man was an animal.

  Talina sipped her stout, let the rich beer run over her tongue. Damn, she’d missed beer. Three days of hardscrabble hunting on foot and by air, and that pus-sucking Whitey had put the slip on them again.

  “Yes,” Demon hissed from behind her stomach.

  It only felt like the quetzal lived in her gut. The Port Authority physician, Raya Turnienko, had repeatedly proven to Talina that there was no quetzal hiding out behind her liver. Rather—like the presence of Rocket on her shoulder—that was how the thing manifested. Used transferRNA to communicate with the nerve cells in her brain. Not that Demon was a single quetzal, but existed as a composite made up of the TriNA molecules from a quetzal lineage. Whitey’s lineage.

  Nor was that the only quetzal TriNA that infested her. The one she called “Rocket,” the Wayob that perched on her shoulder, was made up of several different quetzals from the Mundo, Briggs, and Rork lineages. Her blood and tissues were thick with the stuff.

  One and many at the same time.

  Only a Maya shaman would understand.

  Talina just wanted the shit out of her body.

  “But I’ll get you in the end,” she promised both Whitey and Demon.

  “Or we’ll get you.”

  “Been trying that for the last four years, you piece of shit.” She sipped her stout.

  Rocket’s spectral presence chittered quetzal laughter in her ear. She gave the little twerp a wry smile in reply.

  Talina turned to take in the tavern. Inga’s was half full: miners, the local trades people, and the weekly rotation from down at Corporate Mine now came trickling in. The few local troublemakers, like Hofer, seemed to be in a convivial mood.

  Good. She’d hate to have to go bust heads.

  Talina saw Kalico Aguila descending the steps. Beside her, Shig Mosadek was saying something, his hands gesturing in emphasis. Kalico was dressed in her last fancy Supervisor’s uniform—the one she was saving for special occasions. That the woman would dress up like . . . Ah, yes. This must be the day she’d taken the shuttle up to Vixen to contact Ashanti.

  Captain Torg
ussen had delayed Vixen’s departure to rendezvous with a particularly intriguing comet in order to allow Aguila to use Vixen’s photonic com. By now the survey ship was accelerating hard to catch the comet as it rounded Capella.

  Shig, who had also attended, was wearing his locally milled fabric shirt with the squash-blossom flowers Yvette had embroidered on the front. To Talina’s knowledge, the comparative religions scholar didn’t have anything resembling formal attire in his wardrobe. Shig’s only concession to fashion was the quetzal-hide cape he reserved for rainy days.

  Talina arched an eyebrow as Aguila turned her way, strode across the fitted stones in the floor, and hitched herself into the elevated chair beside Talina’s. Shig clambered onto the stool on Aguila’s right.

  “What’s with the fancy dress? Trying to impress the new folks?” Talina asked.

  “Just back from Vixen.” Aguila had a thoughtful look on her scarred face. “Ashanti’s finally close enough that we could have a conference on the photonic com. Talked to the captain, the Corporate Advisor/Observer, and the science director. Not that it’s a huge surprise, but the situation on Ashanti is a bit grimmer than we’d been led to believe on the text-only long-range com.”

  “How grim?”

  Aguila grinned humorlessly; it rearranged her scars. “Grim enough that I told Shig he’s buying the whiskey.”

  “Couldn’t be worse than Freelander.” Memories of Talina’s last time aboard the ghost ship still sent fingers of ice slipping down her backbone. And to think she’d condemned Tamarland Benteen to that eerie and endless hell.

  “Maybe not,” Shig agreed. “But trouble still. We finally got an explanation for some of the hesitation they’ve expressed through their messages. They’ve been ten years in that bucket. Out there in the black for almost seven now. Popped back in more than a half a light-year from Capella.”