by Mark Wandrey
“Please, Thaddeus,” Jimmy heard his mommy say. “It is what it is.”
“What it is happens to be stupidity!” Jimmy’s daddy said. Jimmy backed up slightly. His daddy was kind and patient, always there with a hug and usually with a treat or two secreted in the many pockets of his uniform. Jimmy had never heard such hatred in his daddy’s voice before. What was happening?
“It’s his life,” Jimmy’s momma said.
“It’s our family’s reputation!” his daddy yelled back, mad at both the strange voice and his mommy now. “Five years you’ve been gone. One of only five picked from Earth. God damn it, Wil, the others all quit or were washed out!”
“You’ve been keeping tabs on me,” the stranger said.
“Of course, I have,” his daddy said. “Wil, you’re my younger brother! You’re a Cartwright! What would our grandfather say about what you’re going to do?”
A long silence passed. If they said anything, it was too quiet for Jimmy to hear. He crept back to the edge of the balcony, sticking his head between the rails to try and hear better. Younger brother? Jimmy wracked his sleep-filled brain. He’d turned five only a short time ago. Among his many presents had been a brand new slate. A very good one. On the gift tag it had said “To Jimmy, From Uncle William.” His young tired mind worked it over. William…Wil. Uncle William?
He remembered Daddy and Mommy talking about Uncle William, sorta. He wasn’t on Earth. He’d left before Jimmy was born. He was doing something big, something important. Daddy had smiled when he mentioned William.
Downstairs, the door to the library creaked open, and Jimmy pulled back into the shadows. The sound of boots clicking on the polished marble floor of the grand parlor echoed up to him, and Jimmy looked down. At first he thought it was his daddy, then he saw this figure was taller, wearing a strange blue uniform with a shiny triangular badge on his chest.
“Think about the family!” Jimmy’s daddy yelled from back in the library, and the man turned around. The face was different too.
“Not today, Thad, not today.” He turned and went to the door, which opened automatically.
“You walk out the door, you are never coming back. You hear me, you son of a bitch! Never! Not a dime, you are dead to us!”
“Oh, Thaddeus, no!” Jimmy heard his momma crying. He was confused and scared but couldn’t look away.
Wil Cartwright stopped and glanced back into the library. Then, without a word, he marched out the door.
“Jimmy, what are you doing out here?”
He looked up at his nanny, Stephanie, as she stooped to pick him up.
“Daddy’s fighting with my uncle? I’ve never seen him before. Why are they fighting?”
“That’s none of the young master’s concern,” Stephanie said. “Back to bed with you.”
“But, Nanna,” he complained.
She tut-tutted and carried him into his room. The walls were covered with Binnig posters, and model CASPers stood on many of the shelves. The new slate sat on his bedside table. Stephanie put him into his bed and used the room controls to start some quiet music.
“But I want to know what’s happening,” he complained.
“Maybe your father will tell you in the morning,” she said as she tucked the warm covers under his chin.
Jimmy yawned expansively and promised himself he’d ask first thing in the morning. But morning was so, so far away. Sleep returned, with more dreams. Dreams which eventually washed away the memory of a late-night moment in time. Locked away in the back of his mind’s eye, they stayed there for years, and years, and years…
* * *
Jim opened his eyes and looked around. He was expecting the rubble-strewn streets and ruins of an ancient Raknar maintenance base—what he found was the medical bay of Pale Rider. He blinked and tried to remember how he’d gotten there. The assassins. The drone attack which killed Fin. The leader pointing a gun at his head…then nothing.
He sat up, grunting a little from the pain in his back. The pain was a bare fraction of what it had been. He noticed he was still in his field uniform, but the busted rebreather mask and backpack were on a tray next to the autodoc, which was still humming with life. So was his gun, the GP-90 he thought he’d lost. A meter away, Splunk lay on top of a medical implement case, though she was nestled in a clean white blanket.
He stood on somewhat shaky legs and went to her. Her gear had been removed and piled on the floor along with her mask. She was still bloody, but the wound was entirely healed. Jim flexed his shoulder and found it only stiff. He’d had a nanite treatment, maybe two. He remembered being a mess. Walking over to a mirror in the medical bay, he managed to contort himself enough to examine the small of his back. He could see a big yellow and black bruise, which could be a week old, not hours or minutes.
How the hell did I get here? He looked around for clues. The autodoc’s function display showed medical scans of both Splunk and him. The tiny Fae had some metal fragments in her arm and a concussion. Jim had a badly hemorrhaging kidney and a broken scapula. The autodoc did not show any missing doses of medical nanites.
Still not feeling great, he sat heavily on the bed and tried to focus his mind. He had been far too occupied using his pinplants to control the drones to remember to record what happened, thus all he had was his own recollection. A recollection which wasn’t working well at all.
Checking again to be sure Splunk was okay, he went to the bridge. As he climbed the ladder, he noted the gravity decks had been rotated so the medical bay was down, definitely not the way he’d left them when they’d landed. On the bridge he looked out at the starport. The newer looking ship he’d noticed when they’d landed was gone, but the junky looking ship the assassins must have used was sitting where it landed.
Whoever had brought him aboard had understood the functions of his ship well enough to rotate the gravity decks and operate the medical bay, and he’d had the medical knowledge to treat him and Splunk. But the most interesting point was that they’d gotten aboard at all! He checked the computer and saw the ship had been accessed by a valid code, the same one Jim used. In fact, the code had been the same since he got the ship after taking over Cartwright’s Cavaliers.
Had I been conscious enough to get back here? Or did someone from the other ship help me? A fractured memory of a grenade tickled the back of his mind, then was gone as quickly as it had arrived. It was extremely frustrating.
The computer had dutifully recorded the ID of the newer ship when it left. Big Bad Wolf. He shook his head. Strange name for a ship. He was faced with a series of options. Either he’d somehow gotten himself back to his ship, used the code, gotten aboard, reoriented the medical bay, and administered treatment to himself, without the treatment showing as expended in his stores, or someone else brought him into his ship, knew the code, and took care of him without using anything more than Jim’s autodoc to evaluate him and Splunk.
His friend entered the bridge and looked at him. “What happened,
“I wish I knew,” Jim said and shook his head. He examined the old, junky ship sitting nearby for a long moment before sitting in the command chair and bringing Pale Rider back online. Whatever happened here, I don’t want to risk getting attacked again.
The ship’s lift motors thundered, and he ordered the autopilot to lift off and proceed to orbit on the most economical flightpath possible. As Pale Rider leaned forward and began to climb, he took a final look at the other ship. Not today, whoever you are.
They climbed toward orbit in silence. The last stop where he could possibly learn the secrets of the Raknar fell away, yet another lost cause. The computer displayed their next destinations—a brief stop at Aurora Station in the Centaur region of the Jesc arm, then on to the planet Soo-Aku as arranged by the Peacemakers. Hargrave would have his Cavaliers waiting to complete the mission, which would—hopefully—help their reputation with the enigmatic Peacemakers.
Pale Rider reached space and began to circular
ize her orbit. In another few minutes Jim could set course for the stargate. He remembered the chip and other things in his bag back in the medical bay. Maybe he’d find something interesting on Aurora Station. It was, after all, a well-known commerce hub.
Splunk looked tired from their ordeal. Jim nodded—at long last, it was time to turn and head toward home.
* * * * *
Chapter Eight
Jim Cartwright watched the artist at her work—he’d never seen such skill, such control, such…artistry in his life. The MinSha’s four upper limbs were interchangeable arms, each with multiple grasping digits and “wrists” which rotated on incredible ball joints which imparted unparalleled dexterity. This particular MinSha, though, was fascinating in another way. Her chiton was a ghostly shade of green, not the blue of all the other MinSha he’d seen. Just when he thought he’d seen it all on Aurora Station.
Located in the heart of the Centaur region, Jesc arm, Aurora Station’s name was unpronounceable to Humans. As was often the way of his race when this happened, they made up a name understandable to them. Sometimes the name stuck, sometimes it didn’t. Aurora Station circled a star with no planets, only a vast asteroid belt. A failed system, the scientists called it.
The star, a brilliant blue-white O-class star, blazed through an asteroid field which was half a light year across and segmented like the rings of Saturn. There was enough material in the 200+ rings to make three star systems the size of Sol’s. Several of the rings were mostly ice, and the bright starlight threw brightly dazzling lightshows. Aurora Station was situated to have a particularly good permanent exhibit of those shows. They went on around the clock, changed by the moment, and never repeated.
Jim spent most of his first day at Aurora Station in a half-kilometer-wide, one-piece ruby dome just gawking at the spectacle. Being a merc, he’d never done any real tourism. He didn’t travel to see the sights; he traveled to kill the enemy and get paid. However, Aurora Station was a huge wheel rotating on a zero-gravity hub which played host to a never-ceasing series of arrivals and departures of the Galactic Union’s equivalent to cruise ships. The viewing dome he went to charged 50 credits an hour and hosted 5,000 beings at a time. There were six such domes, all situated on the end of the station’s zero-gravity hub, facing the best views, and he’d had to wait two hours in line to get in.
Rather like an Earth tourist trap, the station was also home to countless amusements for almost all races. Zero-gravity flight rooms where you could rent wings and soar like a bird. Gambling casinos were everywhere, and some involved life-or-death wagers. Holy shit! He’d passed a thousand shops and just as many restaurants and bars, all catering to an infinite variety of alien needs, desires, and perversions. He even passed a nightclub with a band of Besquith playing surprisingly Human sounding death metal. Since the clientele appeared to be exclusively Besquith, he didn’t investigate further.
At one point, he found an interesting underwater maze meant for races like the Selroth or the Cartar. There was an observation area where non-aquatics could watch their underwater neighbors playing strange games in the mazes. Jim could have sworn he saw a dolphin, just like the ones from Earth. He hadn’t been recording, though. When he thought back on the half-glimpsed image, he was sure it had hands on the ends of its flippers, so he must have been mistaken.
The Buma, who owned and operated the station, were particularly proud of it for many reasons. The shrewd businesslike race didn’t care about the view…or the name. They cared about the credits flowing into their coffers. The Buma were dominant in the Trade Guild. Aurora was just as popular with the little-known Resource Guild who controlled mining on the million or so claims within the system, and the Merchant Guild who handled the flow of goods out of the system.
The majority of Aurora Station, despite the vast entertainment complex, was manufacturing. Three of the four hubs were dedicated to it. A quick scan of the station’s index showed 5,331 registered manufacturing interests, as well as a dozen syndicates and consortiums. He even saw a listing for the Union Credit Exchange, or UCX. If he remembered correctly, they were the ones who made the hard credits with little red diamonds in them.
Jim had just finished purchasing an interesting trinket for his girlfriend when he spotted the MinSha. A merc race, just like Humans, the MinSha were known for their brutal efficiency in matters of war, as well as a boundless sense of duty and honor. What they weren’t known for was being solo merchants, or really being merchants at all. Though Aurora Station had a merc pit, it was a small one. The station was mostly known as a trade and commerce hub. The asteroid belt was also notorious for occasional strikes of red diamonds as well as a thousand other rare and volatile elements. It reminded him a little of an old Earth gold town.
He spotted the unusually colored MinSha and diverted from his course. He had to be at a meeting, but he also couldn’t resist a mystery. The alien wove through the dense crowd of other aliens with a practiced ease. Jim was hard pressed to keep up, especially since Humans were rare in this part of the galaxy. Every few feet someone would stop to look curiously at the furless ape, further slowing him. At one point, he’d thought he’d lost his quarry. What kind of merc business was such an interesting MinSha involved with? He’d learned to be keen to these sorts of happenings in his business. Any edge could be the winning one.
But the MinSha hadn’t gone into a business or stopped to meet with anyone. No, she’d opened a tiny little cubical off the promenade. It might have once been a storage room, a maintenance accessway, or maybe even just an architectural void. Now it was a shop. Maybe ten meters square, it had an interestingly adjustable seat in the center, with room to move around it from all sides, and dozens of little storage bins along the inside walls. The MinSha was just finishing securing the rolling door to the ceiling. There was no sign advertising what the business might be—none his pinplants could translate, at least. The MinSha’s language was one of the more difficult to speak and read.
He watched the alien go about examining and preparing numerous little instruments. There was a single piece of high-tech equipment, a machine which looked a little like a medical nanobot system, but with an unusual Tri-V interface and various lines and linkages. He stayed on the opposite side of the promenade and tried to act disinterested, despite the fact he couldn’t take his eyes off the scene. After a time, the MinSha finished her preparations. She moved to the doorway, flexed her various arms, and touched a place on her thorax. Every inch of her pale green body came alive. Jim stood in stunned disbelief. Creatures moved, ships flew, robots pranced, alien languages flashed.
“Holy shit,” Jim said. “She’s a tattoo artist!” The paleness of her chiton now made sense. He’d never seen a MinSha with tattoos—hell, he hadn’t even thought it was possible. How do you embed a tattoo into chiton? Apparently, it was possible, as this particular MinSha was a living canvas. The tattoos were incredible; they changed constantly and rarely repeated.
The MinSha held up her arms and moved back and forth to show off her work, gesturing for everyone to come closer. A crowd quickly gathered, and the traffic slowed. Within minutes, several dozen aliens had stopped to admire and comment on her work. He moved closer so he could hear.
“Rare and interesting designs from across the galaxy!” she said. “I have more than fifty million images in my database! Creatures such as you have never seen, from places such as you can scarcely imagine! Do not trust a robot for your tattoo; my four hands can give you the gift of a lifetime!”
“What is that?” someone asked.
“Life. A second life. Understanding. Maybe even wisdom beyond your reach.”
The crowd murmured. Jim was mesmerized by the presentation. After a few moments, she had her first customer. A gorilla-like K’kng was talking to the artist, its long prehensile tale swishing through the air behind it. The MinSha adjusted the chair for the K’kng physiology and got it seated. Their arms were hairless, and the MinSha began to work on one of them.
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br /> Lots of mercs had morphogenic tattoos, and he’d seen tattoo shops specializing in the technique many times before. There were several in the Houston startown. One was right next to the shop where he’d gotten his first pinplants. They’d been operating in the same spot for nearly 100 years. The shop used robotic systems with intricate machines meticulously engineered for embedding nanobot ink under someone’s skin and adding a processor so the tattoo came alive.
A morphogenic tattoo could be had for 50 to 100 credits on Earth, and the shop would have a catalogue of a few hundred preset designs which could pose, move, or flash. For 500 to 1,000 credits you could get an increased number of images and more lifelike movements. Those took time to program, though. Work out the details today, come back when the artist wrote the code.
He’d once seen a merc on Earth with a scene from an old movie—some military man pointing and yelling. It was very lifelike, and the guy boasted it had set him back 5,000 credits. If the MinSha’s chiton was an example of her own work, it was like comparing a child’s watercolors to Michael Angelo’s Sistine Chapel. This was made even more amazing because the MinSha didn’t use robots, she did it all with her hands!
Jim watched as the K’kng got its tattoo. When energized it was a constantly renewing sunset over a building. He didn’t know what it meant, but it was obviously important to the customer. The entire operation took ten minutes, including the bloodless installation of the controller. The K’kng sat and glared at the crowd the entire time, while the MinSha’s many hands moved with blinding speed and precision. It was like watching a biological sewing machine, or an insane four-handed version of the game where you stab a knife between your fingers faster and faster. He’d heard an old merc call it pinfinger.
Once the tattoo work was done, the customer admired the work, showing huge teeth in obvious pleasure. It tried to offer a UAAC, a universal account access card, or yack. The MinSha shook her head.
