by J. S. Morin
“How long you been without astral?” asked Rybakov, the star-drive mechanic.
Mort scratched at his scalp. “Couldn’t say. I mean, we were on the ground a couple of days. Could’ve gone kerflooey anywhere along the way. We weren’t using it at the time, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“That’s not what I’m asking,” Rybakov replied. “I was wondering how long you’ve been limping around the galaxy at non-standard speeds. You should have had this looked at straight away.”
Mort leaned against the wall and wagged a finger at Rybakov. “I get it. You’re just jealous. Old coot like me knows how to get things done when the gizmos go all … scientific on you. We were stranded, with no Convocation repair crews within shouting distance. I dragged this carcass back to ARGO space. Bet you couldn’t have managed that.”
Rybakov pulled his head out of the star-drive and raised an eyebrow at Mort. “I wouldn’t have needed to find out. Proper maintenance and these things don’t happen. Listen here, old timer, while your improvisation may be fine for emergencies, we can’t condone this reckless astral diving in ARGO territory. Now if you don’t want this to happen again …”
Roddy watched Mort’s eyes glaze over. It wasn’t his fault, really. Not only had he heard this spiel before a dozen times from various ARGO maintenance gremlins, but he had another task nagging at him. The Gallivant had brought an actual investigative wizard on board, and Mort was fighting a war of misinformation on two fronts.
# # #
Carl hadn’t counted on the Gallivant having an actual wizard aboard. Mort had been jerking the strings on navy star-drive mechanics for years. It had become routine. The young woman in the sapphire blue uniform and Convocation crest stalked the cargo hold with a permanent furrow in her brow. Carl watched with arms folded, a practiced look of ease presented for the Gallivant’s first officer, Commander Jeanine MacDougal.
Without taking the effort to convince himself that he had nothing to hide, Carl kept his worry from his features by concentrating on the two women who had commandeered his ship for the moment. Commander MacDougal was pushing forty, if he had to guess, with soft features and a few locks of grey in her single braid. She had the sort of hard, trim body the navy preferred in its sailors. Sorceress Tia Ramirez was probably the same age, but didn’t look it. Mort had warned him years ago not to trust the looks of anyone who knew transformative or illusory magic—Keesha Bell was a prime example. The Gallivant’s investigative sorceress had jet black hair that fell plumb-line straight to a uniform length at her jawline and a figure her unisex navy outfit couldn’t hide. It was the eyes that kept drawing Carl’s attention though, not just because they were trying very hard to see a crate of disintegrator rifles she was nearly tripping over, but because they were an unnatural share of turquoise. The faint glow in them might have been an affectation, or a function of whatever magic she was rooting around the cargo hold with.
Commander MacDougal’s fingers danced across the surface of her datapad, making a series of bleeps and bloops. “Your travel records are spotty,” she said, not looking up as she addressed Carl.
“Spend a lot of time outside ARGO space,” Carl replied. “We’re armed and shielded. No harm seeing a bit of untamed space for ourselves.”
“To call your logs inadequate would be doing them a service,” Commander MacDougal continued. “I’ve arrested pirates with better record-keeping.”
“Yeah, I know,” Carl said, trying to sound contrite. “I just hate the way my voice sounds in a log. I sound fine in my head, but playback always makes me out to be this pompous, reedy-voiced ass.”
Commander MacDougal looked up from her datapad. “I can’t imagine how that happens … I see you were stopped in neutral space by the Tallyho recently. They cleared you at the time. Care you explain your whereabouts since then?”
“You make a guy feel awful guilty for just a blown star-drive,” Carl said. “You know that?”
“Something’s definitely wrong here,” Sorceress Ramirez said. “I just can’t put a finger on it.”
“I can see why they don’t saddle you guys with Convocation help too often,” Carl said in an undertone to Commander Ramirez. “She piss someone off Earth-side? Girl’s got no business in space if she can’t either clear me or say what she’s found. This innuendo business is bush league. I’m ex-navy myself.”
“Commander,” Sorceress Ramirez said. “He is hiding something here. I just can’t find it.”
Carl scratched behind his ear. “Listen, I don’t know what to tell you. You’re not going to find anything because there’s nothing to find. You’re welcome to keep looking, but I don’t want this to turn into an archaeological dig site. Once your mechanic gets my star-drive up and running, I was hoping to get under way.”
Sorceress Ramirez looked to MacDougal. “Commander—”
“Look,” Commander MacDougal said. “You can get your ship under way as soon as my scanning crews and wizard give the all-clear. Not before. You have problem with that?”
Carl snorted. “Yeah, your wizard’s pissing me off. She could end this any time she wants. You guys aren’t searching for contraband, you’re looking for some pretense to write me up and pad your fine quotas. I’ve got rights, you know!”
“Yes, you do,” Commander MacDougal agreed. She slid her sidearm free from its holster and pointed it Carl’s way. “But we have broad discretionary powers out here in the border regions. You want this wrapped up? Fine. You can tell us under truth scan what’s going on with this ship, and what’s bothering Sorceress Ramirez.”
Carl laced his fingers behind his head and headed for the docking hatch at an easy saunter. “You want the truth? Let’s do this. I’ve got all the truth you can handle.”
# # #
Mriy came in just as the techs were packing up their gear, having found nothing out of the ordinary. She had a look on her face that few humans would have recognized. Her upper lip twitched, and her ears kept trying to swivel back despite an obvious effort to keep them facing forward. She was nervous, and with two scanner-warmers from the navy still in the room, Tanny was worried the azrin was going to go bloody on them.
“Thanks for the once-over, boys,” Tanny said, speeding the techs on their way. “Nice knowing there’s nothing else wrong aside from the usual we already knew about.” The two techs were customs enforcement, not mechanics. While their scanners might have found major hull breaches or radiation leaks, they were looking for plants, animals, and weaponry that didn’t belong in ARGO space—at least not among civilians.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” one of the two replied in an Old Earth accent, something quaint and western-European. Straps for scanner carrying cases were slung this way and that over the techs’ shoulders as they trudged out of the common room and into the cargo hold, where their ship was connected to the Mobius.
As soon as the door closed, Tanny whispered urgently to Mriy. “What is it?”
“The captain,” Mriy said. “The patrol ship commed us. They took Carl aboard their vessel.”
“Oh, shit!”
“Yes,” Mriy agreed. “Dung, excrement, and shit all in the same pile.”
“All right, let’s stay calm,” Tanny said, putting her hands out to calm the azrin. “We need a plan. Where’s Mort?”
Mriy turned up empty paws. “I was in the cockpit. How would I know?”
“Must still be down with the Gallivant’s star-drive guy,” Tanny said. She nodded to herself as a plan began to form. But first of all, she needed to make sure that Mriy was with her. “They pull Carl’s brain out through his ears, we’re cooked. They find those disintegrator rifles, we’re doing cold time. When they find out what our cargo is, there’s a good chance things go worse for us. So … blood or water?”
It was an azrin expression Mriy had taught her. An ancient legend among their kind said that a hunter’s blood would turn to water if he abandoned a packmate in the wild. There was more to it than that, but Mriy wasn
’t much of a storyteller. The key point that Tanny had retained was the question to ask before a hunt.
“Blood,” Mriy agreed. “Lots of blood. We wait for Mort?”
Tanny rubbed her face with both hands, squeezing her eyes shut and willing away distracting thoughts. Mort might wreck both ships, like he had with the Viper, but they might get lucky once again with the damage being reparable. If they waited, the interrogators on the Gallivant might break Carl. At that point, it would be blaster-rifles in the corridors until one side couldn’t fire back. Of course, the Gallivant could always release the docking collar and blast Mobius from space, leaving a shattered hulk not quite one standard unit deep in the astral plane. Roddy was with Mort … a non-factor until the wizard showed up. Esper … well, she was something.
“Let’s get Esper,” Tanny said.
“Um.”
Tanny knew the objection. Esper was no hunter. She wasn’t much of anything, really. But she could man the comm from the cockpit and coordinate their movements. She could also probably maneuver the ship if the Gallivant broke free. Hopefully if it came to that, one of them would be able to man the turret for a final showdown before Earth Navy’s finest dusted them.
Tanny ignored Mriy’s halfhearted objection and pounded on the door to Esper’s quarters.
“What is it?” Esper asked as she opened the door. “All clear?”
“Not hardly,” Tanny said. She drew her blaster pistol and pressed it into Esper’s hands. “We’ve got us a rescue mission. Carl’s stepped in it again.”
# # #
There was a clunk as the magnetic locks of the restraints held Carl’s wrists to the arms of the chair. A technician in a white medical smock pressed his head back against the headrest as probes telescoped in, surrounding his cranium in a sparse forest of stainless steel spikes that prevented any movement.
Carl flapped his hands. “You don’t need the restraints. I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“You’d be surprised how many exhaust-sniffing space cases I’ve had in that chair who changed their mind midway through. Those ‘beat the machine’ articles in the bowels of the omni catch me more criminals …” said Commander MacDougal, shaking her head.
Something cold pressed against the side of Carl’s neck, and there was a puff-hiss as some drug was forced into his bloodstream. “The hell’d you just fill me with?” he demanded through gritted teeth as a warm feeling spread from his neck into the rest of his body.
“Just something to relax you,” the tech said, adjusting a set of tiny cameras on an armature so that they aimed at Carl’s eyes.
“You ever consider people might not need relaxing if you didn’t put pointy objects a few centimeters from their eyes?” Carl asked.
“If you’d rather, I could go first,” Sorceress Ramirez said flatly. She stood at the edge of Carl’s field of view, her hands tucked into the opposite sleeves of her uniform shirt. Only a wizard’s uniform had sleeves loose enough for that maneuver to work.
“No need to fight over me,” Carl said. “Plenty of Carl to go around. Play nice and take turns.”
“We ready to baseline him yet?” Commander MacDougal asked.
The tech made a few minor adjustments. Near as Carl could tell, it was just to make him more uncomfortable, puttering just out of view on stuff jabbing at his brain. “You’re all set, Commander.”
“State your full name.”
“Bradley Carlin Ramsey,” Carl said. “Carlin was one of my dad’s favorite comedians. Never got a good answer why the hell the picked Bradley. Mike got the normal name, and he—”
“Enough,” Commander MacDougal snapped. “Date of birth.”
“July one, twenty-five twenty-eight,” Carl replied.
“Place of birth.”
“Depends who you ask,” said Carl. “Officially Warwick, Boston, Earth. Really my mom popped me out while we were still on approach, aboard the Madison Squared.”
There was a pause, and Carl imagined the commander, sorceress, and tech conferring silently behind him. The tech was a bland little spud that Carl had forgotten the instant the man left his sight, but he could imagine in the details of his two female captors.
“We ready for real questions yet?” Carl asked. “I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but I need to piss. I mean, I’m not gonna piss in your weird inquisitor chair, but … well, it would be nice if we moved things along here.”
“How long have you owned and operated the Mobius?”
“About four years, give or take, and about four years, give or take,” Carl replied. “Unless by ‘operate’ you mean ‘fly,’ in which case: all too fucking infrequently.”
“He’s muddling the baseline,” the tech said.
“Mr. Ramsey,” Commander MacDougal said. “Please stick to the questions asked. Let’s start over. State your full name.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
“State your full name.”
Carl played along, answering their bland and mundane questions until they reached the point they had left off.
“Mr. Ramsey, do you have anything on board your ship which is prohibited from civilian transport by ARGO regulations?”
“Nope,” Carl replied. At that moment, he could not imagine what they might be talking about. The Mobius might take a questionable job once in a while, but they were squeaky clean and had been for months.
“Any passengers or crew with outstanding warrants?”
“Nope.”
“Any passengers or crew that you did not disclose?”
“Nope.”
“Any plant or animal life from an alien world outside ARGO control?”
“Nope. Unless we lost Meyang VII while I was traveling, in which case Mriy would qualify.”
“Does your ship have any systems, magical or technological, that might interfere with our scans?”
“Damned if I know how your scans work,” Carl said. “But nothing that I know of.”
Carl strained to make out the whispered conversation going on behind him. It was bugging the hell of out them, he knew.
“Mr. Ramsey, are any of your systems running outside of legal specification?”
“Yes!” he said. He allowed them a moment, judging how long they’d wait before pressing him for details and beginning just before they demanded he elaborate. “Our star-drive is busted.”
“Your gizmo is worthless,” Sorceress Ramirez said. “Leave the restraints, but get the rest of that junk away from him.”
“You sound so beautiful when you’re angry,” Carl said. “It might just be the drug you gave me talking, but if you want to get together once we’re finished here, I won’t hold any of this against you.”
“Mr. Ramsey, do be quiet,” Commander MacDougal ordered. “You will only speak in response to the questions put to you.”
“Sorry Commander,” Carl said. “I saw by your ring that you’re a married woman. I didn’t know you’d get jealous over me and Tia. I mean, I saw you checking her out, licking your lips with that hungry look in your eyes while she was searching my ship. I just figured it was pent up. What happens in the Black Ocean … you know. So if you two ladies want to—”
“This machine is worthless,” Commander MacDougal shouted. A thump behind him told Carl a fist had been pounded against a display panel.
“I’m sorry,” Carl said, hoping they couldn’t see his smirk. The indicators had to be showing him lying just then.
“Commander?” Sorceress Tia Ramirez asked, leaving her actual question unspoken.
“This is awkward,” Carl said. “Maybe I should be going.”
“Get him out of here,” Commander MacDougal ordered.
“It’s nice meeting you all,” Carl said, no doubt setting off the truth detectors once more. Commander MacDougal and Sorceress Ramirez left the room, and Carl heard a heated argument muffled by the door.
The technician set to work briskly, disconnecting Carl from the machine. “You got a ring yourself, there, s
ir,” he said. “You just trying to wind Ramirez up just then?”
“It’s your machine,” Carl replied. “You’d know if I was lying.”
“I just mean …”
“So she’s a wizard. What’s wrong with that? I’d have her in a second and keep her for hours. I love my ex-wife to death, but we’re not exactly saving ourselves for one another. You know?”
“Yeah, but how would you ever get comfortable around her? None of us turn our backs on her, even Rybakov. He’s more like one of us than a real wizard.”
“Some of my best friends are wizards,” Carl replied indignantly.
# # #
Carl passed the star-drive mechanic in the docking collar as the two men returned to their respective ships. Mort and Roddy were there waiting for him.
“How’d things go?” Carl asked.
“What were you doing over there?” Roddy asked.
Carl shrugged, wincing and working loose a kink in his neck from sitting so still in the interrogation chair. “Aw, just clearing up a few things. Mort wasn’t sly enough for that fine piece of sorceress they sent over to check our cargo. She couldn’t pin it, so I had to talk them around to my way of thinking.”
“Sure,” said Mort. “You go being Mr. Clever while I’m trying to convince the limp wand brigade that I’m stupider than he is. You try fuddling things for two wizards at once.”
“I got a wizard and two Earth Navy officers,” Carl replied. “Plus their tech.”
“He’s got you, I think,” Roddy said.
Up above, the door to the common room opened. “What’s going on down there?” Tanny asked. She had a blaster rifle in hand.
“Nothing,” replied Carl. “We’re good to go as soon as we’re off the tether.”
Mriy’s head appeared in the doorway. She looked down at Carl, then to Tanny. “I thought you said—”
“Never mind,” Tanny snapped. “Rescue’s off.”
“I’m glad you’re OK,” Esper’s voice carried down into the hold from unseen behind Mriy and Tanny.
