by J. S. Morin
The pod landed without a sound, but the mattress burst beneath its weight as Mort’s gravity took hold of it. Esper hit the controls to close the cargo door, and Roddy began harnessing the pod to attach the tow cable. Moments later, the klaxon began to sound once more, growing in volume as air returned to the cargo bay. Mort increased the volume of the holovid, but this time Mriy didn’t care. She tore open the door and rushed down to check on the cryostasis pod and its occupant.
# # #
The metal of the cryostasis pod was cold enough to burn, as Mriy discovered when she reached out to touch it. The glass had frosted over with the ship’s humidity. A status display panel was visible and functioning, but she didn’t know enough about the device’s workings to tell anything useful from it.
“So are you ready to tell us who’s in it?” Esper asked. She tucked her EV helmet under an arm as she sidled up to Mriy.
“I don’t know,” Mriy replied. It was an answer she had learned from Mort, who could put so narrow an edge on a question that it would cut. Uncertainty was merely a form of ignorance.
“Come on. You can’t expect us to believe you gave up a share of our next job when you had no idea who we were rescuing.” Esper leaned around to interpose her face between Mriy and the pod. “Who do you think is in there?”
Mriy flattened her ears back. This one spent too much time listening to Mort. Esper knew the trick in that reply. “I would rather not say until I am sure. I would look foolish.”
“Yeah,” Roddy interjected. “That’d be a first around here.” He hopped onto the pod, walking across its surface as if it were level ground. With one gloved foot, he wiped away enough of the frost to see the face of the occupant. There could be no mistake.
Mriy sighed and let her shoulders slump. The frozen form was azrin, with fur coloration not so different from her own. He was young, not quite yet adult, but few non-azrin would have been able to tell. He was large for his age and quite muscular. “This is Hrykii Yrris.”
“Wait… as in Mriy Yrris?” Roddy asked.
“My nephew,” Mriy confirmed. “Son of my brother Soora.”
Esper swallowed. “The one you—”
“Killed,” Mriy said, nodding. Now that she knew it was Hrykii, there was no avoiding the topic. “Yes, the same brother. Hrykii is the eldest of his generation.”
“How’d you hear about this whole…” Esper paused, waving a hand over the cryostasis pod. In her quest for perfect words, she often resorted to gestures, which ruined the intended effect. Human languages had so many words that they tripped over one another. “Business.”
“A friend of Hrykii contacted me,” Mriy replied.
“Thought you were on the Class-A shit list back home,” Roddy observed with his usual tact.
“I doubt I was his first choice,” Mriy replied. She pictured Roddy bleeding on the cargo bay floor, his entrails sagging from a gut wound. The daydream helped her anger with him pass quickly. “How is he?” she asked, turning to Esper.
The human woman had already removed her EV suit’s gloves, and was fiddling with a datapad, connecting to the cryostasis pod’s computer. The thought of being sealed inside such a device made Mriy’s stomach sour—access to your med scans, able to gawk at you, control over your very life.
“Hold on,” Esper replied. “I’m downloading azrin metabolic baselines. The pod didn’t have them installed. I mean, for starters, he’s alive. Broken arm in three places. Most of his ribs are cracked. System is flooded with adrenaline and a…” Esper cleared her throat. “A zoological sedative.”
Mriy nodded along with the overview. “He fought. He was not caught unaware.”
A few quiet minutes passed, broken only by Roddy clearing space in the cargo bay and Esper continuing to poke at her datapad. “Aha! Here we go,” Esper said. “Running your nephew’s bios against azrin norms.”
Mriy peered through the glass. “He was so small last time I saw him…”
“OK. Taking into account his stasis—which rules out metabolic readings—his toxicity results are clean aside from the two I’d noticed on my own. No brain trauma. No nerve damage. Estimated height… wow, 1.9 meters. Mass: 86 kilos. That sound about right to you?”
“He takes after his father,” Mriy remarked absently. Soora had been over two meters tall and 130 kilos. Hrykii had time to catch up.
“Huh?” Esper said. “It says his estimated age is seven.”
“Barely, at that,” Mriy replied.
“I would have guessed more like fifteen or sixteen, honestly,” Esper replied.
Roddy chuckled. “You don’t know azrins, huh? Miss Omni didn’t look up everything, I guess.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Esper asked.
“I’m sixteen,” Mriy replied. “We don’t waste half our lives in childhood like humans and laaku. It’s a primate trait.”
Esper’s face went long, her eyes wide. “I had assumed I was the youngest on the ship.”
“No,” Mriy replied. She laid a hand on the cyrostasis pod. It was still ice cold, but the air in the cargo bay had begun to warm it. “Right now, that honor is Hrykii‘s.”
“How do we wake him up?” Roddy asked, trying to peer over the edge of Esper’s datapad.
“We don’t,” Mriy replied. “He is badly injured.”
“I can just—” Esper began.
“No,” Mriy snapped. “No magic. He is safe in the pod.”
“Fine,” Roddy said. “What are we doing with him, then?”
Mriy hunched over and turned away. “I need to speak with Carl about that.”
# # #
Carl’s quarters smelled foul, a mixture of seeping human fluids and improperly disposed meals. Her own quarters had a Devesson filter, which kept the air cleaner than anywhere else on the ship. Carl’s habitat was particularly deplorable. It was only due to her pressing need that she ventured inside at all.
“You know,” Carl said as soon as she opened the door. “You didn’t have to fire on that bounty hunter. He’d already cut his losses and turned tail.” He was sitting on his bed, tuning Roddy’s double-necked guitar.
She closed the door behind her. “I slipped,” Mriy lied.
“Bullshit, and we both know it,” Carl replied. He was such an unusual human. Few sentients would confront an azrin in an enclosed space. Those who did usually had some plan for defense. Tanny kept a blaster by her pillow. Mort was a wizard, and the less said about how he might defend himself the better. Roddy had made it clear she wasn’t welcome in his quarters. Esper and Kubu were too naive to be properly afraid of her. But Carl… he just seemed to operate with a certainty that she wouldn’t lose her temper and tear his throat out with her teeth.
Today, at least, he was right.
“I need a favor,” Mriy said, allowing Carl’s pronouncement to stand. They were better off with the bounty hunter dead, and Carl realized that. He just disliked reminders of how little he was really in charge aboard his own ship.
“You’re down a favor already,” Carl pointed out. He strummed a chord on the guitar, wrinkled up his face, and resumed his adjustment to the strings.
“I can give up another job’s share,” Mriy offered. “We need to deliver Hrykii.”
“Who?”
“The one in the pod,” Mriy replied. “My nephew. I… assumed Roddy had commed you as soon as I left the cargo bay.”
“Nope,” Carl replied.
“Well, that’s who it is,” Mriy said. “I need to—”
“The answer is ‘no,’” Carl said. He played a sad little series of notes on the guitar. “We’re not your personal shuttle service, and we don’t get work often enough for me to let you go two paydays in hock to the rest of us. It’s not like we can just take out a loan, or buy on credit except a few places I’d really rather not. We don’t get paying jobs, I can’t afford fuel, and we’re stuck planetside. Nobody wants to see it come to that. I’m sorry, but I hope you can see that—”
“Fi
ne. Three jobs with no cut,” Mriy said.
“Deal,” Carl replied, accompanied by a grating rendition of the opening song of the Buy-or-Sell Show. “Where we taking Ricky?”
“H-Ri-kee-ee,” Mriy pronounced for him. “And we’re taking him home. Rikk Pa, Meyang.”
Carl nodded. He leaned over and keyed the comm for the cockpit. “Hey, Tanny. New course. We’re heading to Meyang so Mriy can get herself killed.”
Mriy gnashed her teeth at Carl’s flippant summation of their mission. She glared into his smirking face as she retreated from his quarters. If only he had been wrong.
# # #
Meyang VII, most often referred to simply as Meyang, hung in orbit around a white sun that appeared yellow from the surface and was in turn orbited by a pale moon. A ball of blue and green, with wispy white clouds swirling in the atmosphere, it was as familiar as a child’s first picture book. It looked just like Earth.
Esper shook her head as she watched the planetary approach through the common room’s domed ceiling. “It’s practically deserted. Like everyone on Earth took a holiday out of system, and just a few people stayed behind to water the plants.” Orbital space around Earth swarmed with traffic. At any given time, a hundred thousand ships clogged the space lanes between the thermosphere and Luna’s orbit. And then there were orbital habitats, diplomatic embassies not allowed planetside, military posts, shipyards, astral gates, and solar collectors. But not Meyang. It was hard to pick out the occasional craft against the backdrop of the planet, the one exception being the massive Earth Navy battle cruiser that was the planet’s main garrison.
Mort looked on with her. “Pretty, isn’t she? You can almost forget it’s the twenty-sixth century for a while, looking at a pristine world like that.”
“You ever been to an Earth-like before?” Esper asked.
Mort shrugged. “A few. This is the least modern I’ve seen though. If it’s possible, Phabian is worse than Earth; laaku have no cultural regard for nostalgia. Keru though, they had a nice little wizards’ retreat out in the Ural Mountains… well, what Earth calls the Ural Mountains. Spent a week there, once, getting the processed air out of my lungs.”
“I’ve never been,” Esper replied.
Mort patted her on the shoulder. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You grew up in Sol. Not a lot of cause to go out looking for other Earths when you’ve got the original.”
“No, I mean I’ve never even been to Earth,” Esper said, shaking her head. “I don’t even know where the Urals are. I mean, I can find New York and Tokyo and maybe London—I think—but it’s not stuff I think about much.”
“Never been to Earth?” Mort echoed. “Good Lord, girl. We’re going to have to fix that one of these days. Cradle of humanity. It’s a weeping shame never to have been, especially for a girl from Mars. What were your parents thinking, neglecting your cultural education like that?”
“They were thinking that Earth was a pretentious, snooty, over-regulated museum, not fit for regular folks,” Esper replied. “What’s Earth got that Mars hasn’t?”
Mort snorted and rose from the couch. “What’s Mars got…” he muttered. “I could write a book…” He sulked off toward his quarters. “… damned Martian bigots.”
Esper thought that she was going to be watching the rest of the approach by herself. Meyang grew larger each minute. Such a grand sight seemed a shame to watch alone. Briefly, she considered seeing if Kubu wanted to come out and watch, but he was napping in Tanny’s quarters.
“Here you go,” Mort said as he opened the door from his quarters. In one hand he carried a cantaloupe-size ball that looked just like Earth. In fact, as Mort brought it closer, it might have looked too much like Earth. It wasn’t plastic or fabric, but appeared to be actual rock and water, with a thin mist of clouds that spilled at the edges where Mort’s hand held it.
When Mort pressed the orb into her hands, Esper found that it was no illusion. The surface was rough or wet in all the places it appeared it should be. The polar regions were even cool to the touch. “What is this?” she asked, hoping for an answer beyond the obvious.
“Best map I’ve ever owned,” Mort replied. He leaned over the globe as Esper held it like a platter. “Ural Mountains.”
The globe spun in Esper’s hands, and a region that came to face Mort glowed softly.
“That’s where they are?” Esper asked.
“Yup,” Mort confirmed. “Go ahead and try it. You can’t stump the thing.”
Esper raised the globe to eye level. “New York Prime,” she whispered to it. The magical map twisted around and a pinpoint of light brightened a coastal location.
“You don’t have to add the ‘Prime’ on there,” Mort said. “It knows you mean Earth. But watch… Phabian, Kethlet.” The orb shuddered in Esper’s hand, then twisted around and lit a small area on the far side from New York.
“What just happened?”
“I changed it to Roddy’s world and his home district,” Mort replied. “Roughly where Mumbai would be on Earth.”
“Will it work here?” Esper asked. Mort’s smile was all the encouragement she needed. “Meyang.”
The globe vibrated, and this time she made sure to watch. The cloud cover reoriented instantly, and the colors changed, mostly to deeper greens. “Where’s Mriy from?” she asked, not taking her eyes from the miniature planet in her hand.
“A place called Rikk Pa,” Mort replied, enunciating with what sounded to Esper’s ears like an attempt at an azrin accent. The globe spun around and lit a northerly area. “Looks like that would be somewhere in Norway, west of Oslo. Be cold as a polar bear’s ass this time of year, too. They don’t muck with the weather like Earth does.”
Esper held the globe out to Mort, fearful of harming the priceless device if she kept it in her possession too long. “How’s it work?”
“Damned if I know,” Mort replied. “Probably some sort of magic.”
# # #
The church held that the existence of Earth-likes was incontrovertible proof of God’s hand at work. Every Earth-like’s sun was a twin of Sol. Every moon identical to Luna. The extraneous orbital bodies in the system varied from one to the next, but every Earth-like spun in perfect synchronization. Mid November on Earth was still late autumn on Meyang’s northern hemisphere, and it was indeed cold enough to warrant Mort’s comparison to ursine posteriors. Getting used to different worlds was becoming a habit now, with how restless the Mobius was. Esper had no basis for comparing how close it felt to Earth, but it was a solid winter by Martian standards. Most spacers didn’t risk damaging their EV suits by wearing them planetside, but she was glad of the warmth, despite the potential cost.
The ARGO-secure landing area was reserved for off-world vessels from ARGO member systems. With its Earth registry, the Mobius had no trouble passing the orbital security checkpoint or acquiring ground clearance for their choice of landing sites. After their adventures in the Freeride System and Hadrian IV, their easy entry to the system was something of a surprise. Meyang was an occupied world. Officially it was an ARGO protectorate, but that only meant that the Allied Races of the Galactic Ocean had claimed them before any of the galaxy’s other powers could gain a foothold. The azrin had no status within ARGO in terms of citizenry or representation on the ARGO council. All around the landing area, there were reminders of that fact.
The landing zone was a roughly six-square-kilometer area, surrounded by a ten-meter wall and dotted with security towers. Patrol craft were in constant sight overhead, drifting around at low altitude; eyes looked down on all the naughty creatures below.
The crew piled into the hover-cruiser, an open-topped flatbed conveyance they had liberated from a previous job. Kubu was appointed Official Ship Guardian, which seemed appropriate, given that he was basically a sentient dog. There was a fine tradition back on Earth of using dogs to guard things, even if Kubu had the mental faculties of a preschooler. Convincing him to stay behind (and out of trouble) seem
ed the prudent course until they had a better idea of how he would be received on Meyang. The rest of them, along with the cryostasis pod, headed out to see Pikk Pa.
It was a short trip through the maze of parked starships and other small on-world transports. For that short while, there was the flickering possibility of an uneventful trip. But the security checkpoint at the exit stopped them.
“Sorry,” an ARGO sergeant in articulated power armor informed them. He gestured to Mriy with a stun baton. “Cat’s on the wrong side of the fence. This gate leads to the Humantown. No locals allowed.” Esper could only imagine the security situation on a world like Meyang, where half the populace was deadly to even a seasoned soldier. Tanny’s marine stories mentioned such armor for shock troops and front-line combat engagements.
“She’s not technically a local,” Carl replied from the front passenger’s seat. He wore his battered leather jacket, but was otherwise girded against the cold in over-sized woolen mittens and a fur-lined hat with ear flaps. “She’s part of the crew. And the popsicle isn’t even conscious.”
“I didn’t notice your prisoner was azrin,” the sergeant replied. “But in stasis, you can transport it. We’re going to have to bring a shuttle for transporting your crewman. Can’t have it in Humantown, whatever your relationship.”
Mriy muttered something that Esper couldn’t quite hear, but the guard obviously did. “Fine, you’re a ‘she.’ Go ahead and fucking report me. I speak the local just fine, thanks.”
“Sorry,” Mriy muttered in English.
That drew a smile from the guard. “Well, at least you learned the language. Better than most of your friends around here. Fifty years… you’d think the schools would do a better job teaching it.”
They waited fifteen minutes until a small official craft arrived, and Mriy transferred aboard. She went without complaint, climbing into the back of a craft with separate cockpit and passenger compartments. Even an angry azrin would have had difficulty disrupting the flight. The ARGO shuttle lifted off, and Esper watched to see whether Mriy might wave, or at least look down at them from the window. She didn’t.
