by J. S. Morin
# # #
“It’s not like we can just knock off a ship or twelve, swing back to Freeride, pick up Esper, stuff our hands in our pockets and walk off whistling,” Carl said, keeping his voice low. He leaned against the window of Mort’s quarters, his back to the landing field. In the unlikely event anyone had a camera on them, they wouldn’t get his half of the conversation by reading lips.
Mort rubbed a hand across his face as he paced. “Well, I don’t see any paths except through the darkness. Esper’s familiar with the concept of repentance. We can apologize afterward for resorting to wanton murder to save her.”
Carl sighed and let his head loll back, wincing when it thumped against the glassteel. “I just get this nagging feeling that she might take that apology, then have us leave her in the first civilized place we come to. She still sees a lot of blacks and whites.”
“Well, piracy’s pretty black territory even if you’re fluent in grays.”
“Point taken.”
“Tanny’s going to be put out, too, once she gets herself right,” Mort said. He shook his head. “This is worse than the usual stuff you slip past her—I mean any of us.”
Carl shook a finger at Mort. “This would be a lot easier if you had just rescued her instead of letting them take you both up to see Admiral Chisholm.”
“What? You think I expected them to hold her hostage?” Mort asked. He paused his pacing and held up his hands to the sky, unseen through the ceiling and the hull of the Mobius. “This was all supposed to be a meat-fisted shakedown. She gets arrested on a bullshit charge when she was clearly the victim of an attack. I go up with her to see whatshername with the funny costume and Oxford vocabulary. She tries to shake us down. I tell her who I am. She blanches. I waggle my fingers and give her the squint-eye. She lets us go and apologizes.”
“Well, your plan came off flawlessly.”
“You can’t tell me I haven’t pulled that one off just like that a time or twelve,” Mort said. “Besides, it was refreshing dealing with thugs who name their ships after Shelley and quote Napoleon over their doorways.”
“Up until they said ‘we’re keeping Esper, now get the fuck off my ship,’” Carl said.
Mort nodded. “Yeah, that was about the point they lost me. Bugger me if that girl might not have really had some defense against wizards on that bridge of hers. Wasn’t willing to risk it, not with Esper right there.”
Carl frowned at Mort. He wasn’t generally prone to overprotectiveness. “You and Esper really aren’t…” He bumped his fingertips together. “…are you?”
“Yes, Carl,” Mort said dryly. “I’ve seduced our resident disgraced priestess. The one who’s younger than my own children and covers her eyes when there’s nude scenes in a holovid.”
Carl shrugged. “Prudes are the ones who snap and go wild. You gotta admit she’s sort of drawn to you.”
“It’s the magic, not me,” Mort said. “You never thought much of it, but she likes the feel. Mark my words, that girl’s going to fall, and fall hard, from that One Church dogma of hers.”
“Hard enough and soon enough to break herself out of a modernized Hades-class battlecruiser?”
Mort twisted his mouth aside in a puckered frown and scratched his chin. “Not likely.”
“Then I think it’s time we got ourselves used to the idea of kicking my dear ex-cousin-in-law out of the system,” Carl said. “Once we figure out how.”
# # #
Tanny lay on her bed cockeyed, her neck limp, head upside down over the edge. The windows on her side of the ship looked out at the mountains, which resembled nothing back home on Mars. They were dark gray crags jutting out against a lighter gray sky. A world washed free of color, just like the insides of her skull. There was an odd sense of detachment, knowing that her emotions were drowning under an ocean of chemicals whose exact workings went far beyond her understanding. She should have felt horror, she knew. But she wasn’t horrified. Horror was an emotion that those chemicals had punched in the gut and thrown out an airlock.
As she stared, she heard her own breathing, and that of Kubu, sleeping on the floor beside her. Tanny tried to take stock of what she could still feel and what was numb inside her. Anger—yes, that she had felt already. Fear—even the Sepromax only partially brought that back; she was bone dry. Trust—that much was working, since she had taken Carl and Mort at their word. Surprise—she could think of no way to check that, but would watch for it if something came up. Disgust—she tried to picture Carl sleeping with Janice, but felt no reaction. Arousal—well, she wouldn’t be perpetuating any species anytime soon. Sadness—she thought of Chip, Gandy, Maxwell, and a dozen other friends she’d lost in war or otherwise, and brushed a tear from her eye when the mountains outside grew blurry. Happiness—that was the big one. That was quality of life. There were different kinds of happiness. Blasting the last lutuwon drop ship out of the sky and whooping it up with her fellow marines was nothing like the simple joy of playing in the dirt as a girl on Mars.
It wasn’t a happy day. She’d planned a pirate raid on a mining fleet and heard that a friend had been kidnapped. That was another emotions she’d check on when circumstances allowed.
Kubu yawned and looked up at Tanny, his face upside down to hers. It was an awkward reach, but she twisted an arm around to pat him on the head. “Kubu’s glad to have Mommy back. Kubu loves Mommy.” He nuzzled his head against her hand.
Tanny felt a twitch in her face. It was a smile. “Looks like that works. At least a little. Mommy needed that.”
# # #
Tanny staggered out of her quarters in search of food, stretching to loosen tight muscles. She hadn’t planned to fall asleep. It had just happened and not in the most comfortable position. Kubu followed at her heels, his repeated query of “Food?” told Tanny they were thinking the same thing. It was a worrying thought, that she had been reduced to the mental simplicity of a semi-sentient canine. Hopefully once they were both fed, the gap would widen.
“Hey, sleeping beauty,” Carl greeted her. “We were getting ready to draw lots to see who’d have to kiss you awake. Looks like Kubu got to you first.” He was sitting at the kitchen table with Mort, playing their stupid holographic monster game as Mriy and Roddy looked on, clearly bored.
“Nothing personal,” Roddy said, perched atop the back of a chair. “But I wouldn’t have done it. Those kids’ stories from Earth are all sorts of fucked up.”
“Sorry,” Tanny replied. “I’m feeling a little more myself now. I think the worst is over.” ‘Little’ was the operative word. She was a little optimistic, and the thought of Carl naked was a bit more arousing, but everything was muted. Her feelings were on the other side of fogged glass; she couldn’t touch them, and she could only make out indistinct shapes for most.
The fridge was restocked, and sometime during her nap, Roddy had repaired the door. There was plenty beer, a better selection than they usually stowed, but nothing fancy. She pulled a six-pack of Moudren Pale Ale and checked to see what sort of sandwich the food processor could assemble for her.
“Hold still, boy,” she heard Mort say. Tanny turned to find the wizard bent down in front of Kubu, with his back to the rest of the crew. He was whispering something to the dog, but she couldn’t make it out. Kubu didn’t seem to mind, whatever it was.
“What are you doing over there?” Tanny asked across the room. She glanced to the food processor controls and punched in a quick BLT. It was a light meal, but enough to keep her from getting drunk on an empty stomach.
“One second,” Mort replied. “One… more… second.”
Kubu yelped.
“Kubu!” Tanny shouted, “Are you all right?” She was startled to realize she was concerned about him and startled a second time when it occurred to her that she could be startled.
Mort stepped away, a smug grin on his face. Tanny hurried over as the processor grumbled, working on her lunch. Kubu pawed gingerly at his ear with a hind leg. “What
did you do to Kubu’s ear?” Kubu asked.
“Everyone,” Mort said, “Say hello to Kubu.”
“What do you mean?” Carl asked. “He’s been here weeks now.”
“Whatever,” Roddy muttered. “Hello to Kubu.”
“Why are we greeting him?” Mriy asked.
Kubu’s eyes went wide and his jaw hung open. He stopped pawing at his ear, stood, and took a step back.
“Mort…” Tanny said. “What did you do?”
“You… you can all talk!” Kubu said. He craned his neck to look up at Mort. “You made everyone talk?”
“Shit,” Carl said. “Those earrings work on dogs?”
“Why are we working bullshit jobs out in this wasteland when we can just sell those to dog owners on Earth and Mars?” Roddy asked.
“They don’t work on dogs,” Mort replied. “It does seem to work on whatever Kubu is, though.”
“All this time…” Tanny said.
“Yup,” Mort replied.
“I could have been bitching his ass out for shitting in the cargo hold.”
“Any chance we can teach him to use a toilet?” Roddy asked.
Kubu stared from one speaker to the next, the same gape-eyed wonder in his eyes. “So… crazy…”
“Kubu,” Carl said. “You know what we’re saying?”
Kubu nodded enthusiastically. “Uh huh.”
“If we showed you a magic water-filled hole that you can shit into, then push a button to make the shit go away, think you could manage that?”
“You can do that?” Kubu asked. “Kubu thinks that’s the bestest thing ever!”
Carl turned to Roddy. “Sounds like a ‘yes.’”
Tanny crouched down beside Kubu. “My name is Tanny. You can call me Mommy if you want, but Tanny is my name. And I want you to eat only food, not just anything you find.”
“I’ll teach him the controls for the food processor,” Roddy said. He thumped a fist against the machine.
“Kubu can make food in the big noisy?”
Carl shrugged. “Sure. Saves us the trouble of feeding you.”
“When did you figure this out?” Tanny asked. Mort had kept secrets before—he probably still had more than the rest of them combined—but this felt out of character for him. Letting an animal shit all over the ship as a joke seemed too crude for his humor.
“Only really came to me yesterday,” Mort replied. “But I got sidetracked. Then I figured I could wait until Tanny got back so she could see him understand his first words. We got to spend a lot of time together while you and Carl were holed up in the luxury of Casa de los Bandidos.”
Roddy chuckled. “I was thinking of the Rucker Resort as more of a Seroki Jyzak.”
Everyone just looked at Roddy.
“What?” he asked, balancing on the chair back and raising all four hands in a uniquely laaku shrug. “Seroki Jyzak … from Temple of the Scoundrel Mutant Prophets. You all watched it with me. How could you forget a thing like that? The brothel that was a front for the Fifth Hand assassins.”
Tanny shrugged.
“I liked that holovid, but I didn’t pay attention to the details,” Mriy said. “The Leaping Masters were good fighters.”
Carl cleared his throat. “Once they introduced Master Gojeth’s human sidekick, I was mostly watching her. You may have noticed I have a thing for tough girls.”
“Anita Shau is a joke in laaku films,” Roddy said. “Her accent is pitiful. They dub over her for the Phabian market. She’s just there to get human eyeballs on the holos. A holo with a human in it makes twice on Earth what it does back home.”
Kubu spoke softly. “Tanny? Mommy? What are they talking about?”
Tanny leaned down and replied low enough that none of the others would hear her. “Nothing at all. They talk a lot just to hear themselves. It’s OK to ignore them.”
Kubu nodded.
It was going to be a different world for him now. Tanny wondered how he would adapt. It gave her a moment’s pause to wonder how Esper was faring in her own new world, as a prisoner. A little knot formed in her stomach. Things were coming back, and she wondered whether she was better off not feeling them.
# # #
Esper turned a page, relishing the sound of paper sliding against paper. Most of the books she’d ever handled had plastic pages, and the few paper books she’d seen were deemed too precious to touch. But she was growing accustomed to the faint musty smell, the texture of the pages, the curious weight. She had chosen Oliver Twist from among the pirates’ eclectic library and was nearly finished with it. Time passed more quickly between the pages than it did in the throes of a holovid stupor. Besides, recent circumstances aside, she could watch holovids any old time. This was an opportunity.
The door warning chimed. Whoever was outside would wait ten, perhaps fifteen seconds for her to disentangle herself from any compromising position she might be in, then barge inside. It had been fairly consistent in the three days she had been ‘held’ aboard the Look On My Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair.
Esper set the book on the side table and looked around. The chair’s abundant cushioning had engulfed her, forming around her delicate posterior like a mold. Her feet, propped bare on the ottoman in front of her, had tiny balls of cotton wadded between the toes. Each toenail bore a fresh coating of burgundy paint, still smelling of the alcohol-based evaporating agent as they dried. She hadn’t painted her fingernails yet, loath to lose the reading time as she waited for them to dry before handling rare and valuable books.
Raising her hands in a helpless gesture, she waited for the door to open. She was simply in no position to get up and greet anyone.
“Miss Richelieu,” Cormack said when the door opened. “The Admiral wants to see you.” He was her favorite among her keepers—they hardly seemed to be guards. Fair hair, neatly cropped. A soft, high voice that could have been called prissy. He stepped inside as if hesitant to disturb her.
“Well, this is her ship and all,” Esper replied. “But she picked an inopportune time.” She waved a hand at her toes.
Cormack smiled and gave a knowing wink. “You have time. She’s invited you for dinner. She expects formal dress.”
“Let me guess…”
Cormack nodded.
Esper sighed. “Fine. She wins.”
The very afternoon of her arrival, they had provided her a simple dress, cut almost perfectly to her size. It was a child’s picture book image of what a dress should be and as blue as a crayon. It had just been a placeholder. After obtaining proper measurements, some madman tailor aboard the Look On My Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair had made her five more. Not a one of those five could have been described as plain. It was a far cry from Tanny’s policy of functional, practical, inconspicuous clothing.
But there was one that had clearly been the formal option.
“Dinner will be at 19:30 Earth Standard Time,” Cormack said. He set down a datapad and Esper’s heart quickened. A datapad meant contact with the outside world. “I see the look in your eye, Miss Richelieu. It’s a datanote. No omni, no comm. All it contains are dressing instructions and a reminder alarm. Sorry.”
“A girl can hope,” Esper said with a sigh. She liked Cormack. He seemed to understand. A dinner with him, she could have looked forward to. Someone she could talk with, laugh with, maybe take her mind off not being allowed to leave. And she could flirt with him until she was old and gray and never get him to like women. “How bad is it?” she asked, glancing from the datanote up to Cormack.
“You’ll be stunning,” he said. With a flippant, playful salute, he took his leave. Before the door closed, Esper just caught a glimpse of the actual guard, a thick-armed fellow with a stun baton clipped to his belt.
Her current attire was the nightdress she’d been given her first night in the pirates’ custody. It seemed impolite to chance ruining a new dress with nail polish, even if she was technically a prisoner. Extracting herself from the cushiony nest she’d formed in
her reading chair, Esper plucked the cotton balls from her toes and found the nails to be dry. The room’s wardrobe was imitation Earthwood, oak grown on some arboretum world. She couldn’t imagine even Admiral Chisholm could afford the real thing.
Inside the wardrobe, there were five dresses on numbered hangers. The Poets were the most detail-oriented pirates she’d ever heard of. The datanote’s instructions made it clear that Dress 5 was the proper attire for the evening, though the included pictures made it impossible to confuse with the others. Checking the antique style hands-and-number-wheel chrono, she deduced that it was nearly two hours until dinner. She had time to paint her nails, take a long bath in the hot tub, and snack on chocolates in case dinner was something fancy and inedible.
By the time she was ready to dress, Esper had resigned herself to her fate. Dress 5 was a puzzling mix of the formal and risqué. Admiral Chisholm knew Esper had been a priestess, and had clearly passed the notion on to the ship’s dressmaker (Esper still couldn’t fathom anyone joining a pirate fleet in that capacity). The fabric was a somber black; it was smooth and soft without a trace of shine, trimmed around the edges with a few millimeters of white silk. There was black embroidery that only showed upon close inspection, swirling in patterns of ivy around a crucifix nestled over the stomach. From a meter away, it was all but invisible against the black fabric. The inside of the dress was all white silk and felt wonderful against her skin. It stretched a little as she pulled it up; there were no clasps, no zippers, not even one of those trendy self-sealing polymerized seams. It simply stretched as it went over her hips and snugged in against her waist once it was past.
There was a full-length mirror beside the wardrobe. The fabric came just high enough over her breasts that she could be shown on a family-friendly holovid feed, but no higher. Esper bounced and twisted, worried that she might have an unfortunate accident, but the dress clung to her modesty. It was like a chaperone that only allowed sex after a nice meal. The skirt came to her knees in a flare of petticoats, but left her lower legs bare.
