by Clara Woods
“To let us go once we brought you to Oscuris.”
The eyebrow didn’t lower. “Ah.”
“‘Ah’? That’s all you have to say?”
His frown deepened. “I did.”
“Sending someone else to do your dirty work is your version of keeping a promise?” Lenah snorted. “I should have known.”
He crossed his arms in front of his chest, and her eyes fell on the metal enhancement. She probably shouldn’t fight with him about this, but instead get to the topic of the stone and get out of this cabin alive. Before she could think of how to phrase that, he continued, his eyes never leaving hers. “Believe it or not, I was having a beer in a nice place and you happened to get in trouble in front of it.”
As if that would explain everything, he turned his back and started to rummage through his backpack. He quickly pulled on a black T-shirt before turning to her once more.
“I heard the commotion in front of Big Rat’s shop.” He shrugged his shoulders and proceeded to tuck in his shirt.
Lenah didn’t know what to believe. What benefit did he have from lying about this? It wasn’t that he had any trust to lose with her. If she wanted an opportunity to know the truth, and maybe also know if her abilities still worked, this was her chance.
Lenah concentrated on finding the misty cloud of his mind and sent a suggestion toward him. She’d never used her talents to get the truth out of people, and wasn’t sure if it was going to work, or if any of this still worked. “So you happened to be right there?”
He blinked and then said, “I was having my first beer in freedom at the Dark Haven when people started gathering around the only window to see the mafia’s guards assemble outside of Big Rat’s shop.” At the word mafia, Lenah’s mind jerked to a stop, his mind slipping away from her inner eye. He lightly shook his head, but if he was irked to have said something he didn’t mean to, like about his first beer in freedom, he didn’t show it.
“Then someone claimed to have seen two rich whores—his words”—he brought up his palms in a defensive gesture—“go into the store. That made me suspicious. Rich people don’t come to Oscuris, and I happened to have brought two with me. So I stepped outside to check, and there you were, being led away by the guards.” He regarded her with a grim look. “Are you going to say thank you now, or do you insist on tainting my new reputation as a hero?”
“At least you admit that you weren’t a hero before.”
He lifted his eyebrow at her, but didn’t speak again.
“I do thank you,” Lenah finally said, believing that his words had been true. That part about his first beer in freedom sounded like it might have slipped out due to her influencing him. “I’m sorry, smuggler cyborg, but you push my buttons.”
He didn’t look happy at her addressing him like that.
“What?” It was her turn to lift her hands in defense. “If you’d told us your name before, I wouldn’t need to call you a smuggler cyborg.”
She couldn’t stop provoking him, could she? In part it was because she’d always had to suppress her snappy personality when working with Starwide Research investors. The other part was that he seemed to be a good receiver of her dry remarks, even maybe sharing the disposition for them.
“Cassius,” he finally said, staring down hard at her. Lenah was so surprised he’d offered anything different than a raised eyebrow, she offered him her hand in an awkward greeting.
A few agonizing seconds passed until his large hand enclosed hers. Lenah wondered if he’d given her his real name. Cassius suited him somehow. But then she shoved the thought away. It didn’t matter. Just the fact that he’d given a name was a step toward having a healthier relationship. Since he seemed to be staying on board, that was a priority.
“I didn’t say it nicely before, but thank you for saving us. We’d all be dead by now without you. Why did you wait all this time and not rescue us right there?”
“I knew it was going to be easy to find you afterward. The guards might not be official, but Dark Roulette Mafia does unofficially own the place, and even holds a station and a prison. Besides, it seemed you didn’t really need my help to escape. I picked up your cargo, finished my beer, and made my way to the station.”
“Wait. You have our cargo?” And had that been praise? As in, he didn’t think her an incompetent rich girl pilot?
He nodded and then turned around. Her gaze followed his movement, and indeed, there at the foot of his bunk stood the box Persia had dropped when they were arrested. He handed it to her. Lenah couldn’t believe what she saw. Not only did they still have the stone and the ability to enable a warp bubble, they could still get to Lunara Station to earn their commission and research the knowledge terminal there.
“So, first beer of freedom? What does that mean?”
He was quiet. “I might tell you, if you tell me your story.”
“Maybe someday over a beer,” she said jokingly. Beer was a poor people’s drink, and she’d never actually had it. Lenah could well imagine how her father would press his lips together and not talk to her for a few days if she tried it, especially in public, though it did go with her new lifestyle. She shrugged. “I’ve always been curious how it tastes.”
“You’ve never had beer?”
Lenah shook her head.
That seemed to amuse him, and the corners of his lips flipped upwards for a millisecond. Then his expression changed, and his narrowed eyes glared at her. “Where did you get the stone?”
“About that. I was wondering if you could explain why everyone keeps calling it a Mapstone. What is that?”
“Isn’t that obvious?”
“But how can a stone be a map? Where does it lead?”
Cassius sat down on his cot, wincing slightly.
“Are you hurt?” Lenah asked.
He waved her off. “It’s nothing. I don’t know where the stone leads. But a few days ago, the biggest single job in a decade came to market in the smuggler world. Find and deliver the Mapstone. With it came a description. Your stone looks exactly like it.”
“The galaxy’s a big place. I’m sure it’s filled with river stones that have holes in the center.”
“All of those have a horde of criminals after them?”
Lenah shrugged. “So that’s it? Someone’s paying a lot of money for this, and now the whole criminal universe is after it?”
“That’s one part. The other part of the story is that there are actually two different buyers, and both promised to outbid the other one. The Queen and the United Planets Legion.”
“Excuse me?” UPL was the highest-ranking organization in the Federate Galaxy, even though their position was mostly ceremonial and they’d only take over in case of war against humanity. They had no business posting jobs on criminal bulletin boards. What did they want with a stone that her father had planned to put in his old relics exhibition? And the same woman, the Queen, popped up here as well. Did that mean that her father was somehow connected to the stone, and to the Queen?
“Do you know why they want it? Who in the galaxy’s name is this Queen?”
He shook his head. “Those kinds of requests typically don’t come with an explanation. No one’s interested in that anyway.”
“No one but me?”
He shrugged, and then continued. “How did you get that stone?”
“I’ll tell you if you tell me all you know about the Queen.” Lenah looked at him, trying to make her most convincing face. She didn’t want to use her powers again, in case he noticed something. He had looked suspicious before.
He looked down at his hands as he started talking. “I don’t know her identity, but the Queen’s a very powerful woman who started to create a lot of business a few years ago. The jobs she puts out are usually dangerous and often involve finding relics, or transporting people – mostly aliens. I think she might be into science. She pays well and never cheats, always pays when a job is finished well. She’s managed to acquire quite a following of smugglers aroun
d her. Some bands even openly declare themselves as hers now.”
“Like Kahoot?” Lenah asked.
Cassius looked up at her. “Kahoot of Dark Raven? Yeah. How do you know that?”
“He was in my father’s house the night Persia acquired the stone.”
If he were wondering who her father was and why he had the stone in his house, he didn’t show it; instead, he waited patiently for her to continue.
“My father threw a party on the occasion of opening an exhibition of extinct alien relics. Persia’s former boss, the rightful owner of the stone, was there too. He pissed her off and she was drunk, so she took his precious relic. When I met her, I had no idea. I promised to bring her back to the city, but we got kidnapped.”
His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t insist on the point. “An alien relic exhibition? That means your father was after the payment and staged the exhibition.”
“What? No! My father would never —” But Lenah couldn’t finish. Could he be right? Was her father in financial trouble after getting involved with the wrong people?
“You were saying?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. But Kahoot was there too, sneaking around in the back corridors and the exhibition room. I didn’t think of it before, but I think he might have been looking for the stone.”
Cassius nodded. “He’s the Queen’s guard dog. Not only will he be looking for what she desires most, but she’ll be close by.”
That took Lenah aback. She’d pictured the Queen ruling on a shady planet or station somewhere far away. “Her, there? That’s — hard to imagine.”
“But not impossible?” he asked.
“I guess. But I might have another lead. The informant I was talking to when we ‘met’ you was also telling me about the Queen, and to go find more information in humanity’s oldest knowledge terminal. Which happens to be on Lunara Station.”
“Informant, huh? So that’s what you were doing? Spying on your father?”
“Sure, Mr. Clairvoyant Implants.”
His mouth twisted into a sour expression at her name-calling, but at least it seemed to shut him up. Lenah wasn’t particularly interested in elaborating on who her father was.
What was curious to her was that Cassius didn’t seem proud to be enhanced. That was unusual. While in the civilian world, it wasn’t an attribute to be aspired to and certainly not considered an attractive dating choice, going through the procedures could elevate a non-family member to a high-ranking position in the military. Not that the option was open to everyone. Injured war heroes were carefully chosen, and got a second chance at life. The standard military cyborg had at least two limbs, if not all, replaced, and less-visible enhancements too. It seemed reasonable that Cassius, with just one arm, hadn’t gotten his surgery through any of the official channels. Lenah couldn’t imagine what made someone get a healthy limb chopped off in some dingy illegal clinic in favor of a c-nano replacement with a gun mounted to it. By the way he looked every time someone called him a cyborg, he might be regretting his choice.
“No clairvoyant implants, apart from these.” He lifted his metal arm. “It does tend to make people talk quickly.”
Had that been a joke? Or was he threatening her?
“Your humor is quite edgy,” Lenah answered before turning toward the hatch. “I better bring Persia the good news that we still have the cargo, and initiate the warp bubble toward Lunara Station.” Without waiting for his opinion on her plan, she left and hurried back to the cockpit.
18 Together Is Better
“You and everyone else seem to know so much more, but no one’s offering an explanation,” Persia said, her tone dripping with irony.
Cassius gave her an incredulous look. “So you really didn’t know what you were stealing from your boss?
She shook her head. “Just some artifact to help me recover the losses I made trusting that bastard.”
“Really,” he said, “you two are the most ridiculous thieves I’ve ever encountered.”
They were all gathered in Doctor Lund’s cabin to bring him and Uz up to speed.
“How does the cyborg even know any of that?” Persia looked at Lenah. “Did you tell him?”
“I wanted information from him. It seemed only fair to tell him how we got the stone.”
“That wasn’t your secret to share! Not with someone who set us up to be arrested by some creepy police force.”
Lenah hadn’t gotten the chance to fill in Persia after her talk with Cassius. “About that. I actually believe Cassius didn’t set us up. It would seem that there’s a hefty reward on the stone. Both by UPL and some criminal overlord lady called the Queen.”
“Cassius?” Persia asked.
“Yeah, our cyborg smuggler has graciously told me his name.”
“Some name,” Persia muttered. “Who in the galaxy would be called Cassius? Sounds like some kind of archaic Old Earth warrior.”
Cassius snorted. “Says the woman named after an archaic Old Earth country.”
“It’s a good name for a—”
Interrupting them with a raised hand, Lenah retold the story of how Persia had gotten the stone to Uz and Doctor Lund, and then told them about her discussion with Cassius. It became obvious that Persia had no idea what she’d done at the time. She didn’t say anything; instead, her head dropped deeper into her hands.
Uz was staring at the stone in front of her. “So you’re the one causing us all this trouble?” She lifted the stone off the table and kept staring at it. “You feel old, and somehow alive.”
“Alive?” Lenah echoed, not able to see anything different about the stone herself, apart from it being able to create warp bubbles.
“I can’t really tell you more. Not without…” Uz trailed off and was silent for a long moment, until Lenah started to think she wouldn’t answer at all. “I’m cut. I’m no longer a Cassidian. I lost my most important sense. Without my gyrums – my antennas, as you humans call them – I’m no longer a real Cassidian, nor can I help you to explain this.” She pointed to the stone.
Lenah shook her head. “Of course you’re a real Cassidian. What else would you be?”
“A reject. No longer a part of my people. They made me pay for my treachery, and there’s no going back.”
“Treachery? Wait, are you saying your own people did this to you? Why?” Lenah couldn’t imagine what it took to make them turn on their own. She’d always thought of Cassidians as peaceful, shying away from violence.
“I didn’t like to study the old books. In Cassidia, that’s still all we’re ever taught. But me, I liked to read technical manuals or experiment on starships.” Uz shrugged, as if that would explain everything.
“But that doesn’t justify—mutilation—justify cutting off your gyrums.” Lenah shook her head, leaning against the metal wall of the crowded cabin.
“But it did happen, and now I can’t go back. At least I didn’t end up a lab rat in some freaky corporation’s laboratory. Thanks to you.” Uz looked out the window, where the colorful swirls of the warp bubble were surrounding them, and said no more.
Lenah was glad the Cassidian wasn’t looking at her, but hid her clenched fists in her jacket nonetheless. What in the galaxy was her father up to? Hopefully Uz never found out what Lenah’s last name was.
19 Interruptions
The ship shook violently and several alarms blared. Lenah jerked out of bed as she was thrown hard into the wall of her cabin when another jolt went through the Star Rambler. She didn’t hear the proximity alarm beeping, so it didn’t seem that another ship was shooting at them. Besides, they were in a warp bubble heading to Lunara Station, and you couldn’t shoot at ships in warp bubbles. Holding onto the walls as best as she could, she made her way up to the cockpit. She wasn’t the first one to arrive. Cassius stood there, staring intensely out into black space.
Wait a moment. Black space? What had happened to the bubble? Lenah’s sleepy brain rocked to the conclusion. Something or someone had d
estroyed their warp bubble. That was dangerous. They were lucky they hadn’t re-entered somewhere completely inadequate, or deadly. Sliding into the pilot’s seat, she scanned the alarms that were going off. The ship registered incoming hits to the hull, and the shields were completely depleted. She turned on the rear camera. Several small dots showed in the distance.
“Asteroids.”
“I see them,” the cyborg answered, sliding into the copilot’s seat. Having someone like him, big and imposing, witness her emergency flying skills made Lenah nervous, but she gripped the manual controls firmly and sent the ship into a diving course to avoid the big asteroid looming in front of them. Once they’d passed it, she sent the ship into a steady slowing course. Coming out of a warp bubble, they were going at breakneck speed through the obstacle course. She dodged another medium-sized rock, trying to get a glimpse at all the alarms beeping. The hull had definitely taken a bad hit, and they were registering a drop in air capacity in the cargo hold. Hopefully everyone else was in their cabins with the hatches closed.
Lenah pressed the public comm button. “Is everyone all right? Persia, Uz, Doctor, can you check in?”
A few seconds passed until they heard Uz’s voice over the comm. “I’m good, just got jerked out of a dream.”
“Same here,” Persia said. “What happened?”
“We got…” Lenah trailed off to concentrate on the cluster of medium-sized rocks careening toward them. She took the ship into a sharp turn, then a downward spiral, trying to avoid all the clustered rocks. They might only be bucket-sized, but with the speed they still had and the shields down, they could do serious damage, especially since the hull was already leaking.
“We were thrown out of the warp bubble. Persia, any explanation as to why?”
“No clue, Captain. I don’t even have the stone right now. Gave it to the doctor before I went to sleep.”
Lenah glanced at the cyborg and found her worried frown mirrored in his face. “Doctor Lund, please check in.”
There was no answer.
Lenah dodged another large asteroid, starting a zigzag course in the area. She was starting to get the hang of it, and her hands moved on the control stick before her brain had consciously processed the information of incoming obstacles. This was actually fun.
