Space Rodeo

by Jenny Schwartz

  So, no cut fingers!

  The next day, Thelma returned from her first lesson with Ioan and waved her cut-free fingers at Owen.

  Her friend waggled his antennae back at her in amusement. “I know Uncle Ioan had you wearing gloves, and blade-block shirt and trousers.”

  “Spoilsport.” Thelma looked around the office. “Is it…actually…empty?”

  “Ssshh,” Owen hushed her urgently. “Don’t jinx us.” They smiled at one another. “Hiring my family was a genius idea. Dilys collated the complaints, sorted them and analyzed the results. She has printed out standard responses. Actually, she’s done them up on posters and hung them on the walls of the borrowed office in Customs. Now my family are pointing at the appropriate posters as they respond to complaints.”

  He leaned back. “The dudes coming in to complain that they’ve been conned are told, ‘too bad, so sad, don’t be so stupid’.”

  Thelma grinned and hitched herself up to sit sideways on the desk, one leg swinging.

  The cons Owen referred to were elaborate leg pulls enjoyed by Saloon Sector residents. Hazing dudes and dudettes, newcomers to the sector, was a frontier tradition. They could range from seeding discussion boards with hints of mythical raphus geode cache sites to swapping impossible tales like fueling a spaceship with comet dust. Unless people were being hurt by the good-natured hazing, as sheriff, Max had a policy of letting it all pass on by. A little embarrassment might remind dudes that they were in frontier territory and that they should take additional precautions—an attitude that might save their lives.

  “As for complaints about the price gouging…” Owen continued.

  She joined the chorus with him. “Too bad, so sad.”

  The door opened behind her. She was still turning her head to look when Owen grabbed her with one claw and sent her sliding across the desk toward him. Yprr perception and reflexes were significantly faster than humans’. Thelma barely managed to get her hands down to brace her fall and keep her chin from impacting the floor. She kicked up and hit the red distress button on the back of the desk.

  The desk was rated to withstand blaster fire, and the metallic burn stench said its capacity had just been tested.

  Thelma twisted and grabbed the knife from her boot sheath. Blasters and other energy directed weapons were banned on the spacedock other than for authorized personnel, as were projectile weaponry. Melee weapons like her knife were allowed to be worn, with discretion.

  Owen activated his personal comms unit. “Office attacked. Blasters. Two down. Thelma with me behind desk.”

  She peeked around the desk. Two human men were down, bleeding, inside the doorway. Their legs blocked the sliding door from closing.

  “I called Uncle Ioan.”

  Pressing the distress button would have notified the spacedock guards, Customs next door, and the Lonesome. Thelma glanced up at a security camera. “I’m okay,” she said to it.

  Customs officers reached them first, blasters drawn, but Ioan’s family were on their heels. The spacedock guards panted up last, but they were the ones who brought a medic.

  “Don’t jostle the shards, and they should live,” Owen said of the attackers. “The sheriff will want to interrogate them.”

  The shards were splintered pieces of Owen’s claws. In a classic yprr move, he’d thrown them as missiles, lodging them in the two men’s throats. Choking on your own blood was effectively disabling.

  Ioan approved of Owen’s action.

  After reviewing the security video, so did Zephyr’s police chief, spacedock security and the interested Customs officers.

  Far too far away, on the Lonesome, Max also approved, but he in addition he was furious, worried and inclined to react rather than think. “We’re going to Zephyr. Now!”

  They were lurking near Xlokk.

  It would take them over a week at the Lonesome’s top speed to reach Thelma on Zephyr.

  Max stared at the viewscreen. Access to the Sheriff’s Office’s security cameras meant he could see and hear the action in the reception area. The two offenders had been carted away. Footage of the attack and Owen’s defense had been copied. Thelma and Owen had been interviewed briefly, and with a quick glance up at the camera. People in the office and on the spacedock were aware he’d be watching. What he hadn’t done was interrupt with a comm call to Thelma. Although it took all his control not to demand the reassurance of talking with her.

  But she was finally heading for his private office. The door closed behind her.

  A minute later, her comm transmission reached the Lonesome. “Max?”

  “We’re coming to get you.”

  She sat in his chair, behind his desk. “I wish you could, I really do.” She rubbed at her eyes, then looked back at the camera embedded in the viewscreen’s frame. “But attacking the office, doesn’t it seem likely that whoever ordered the hit wants you to break off whatever you’re doing and return here?”

  He dug his fingers painfully into his thighs. With the time lag in transmission, any interjected objection would arrive confusingly. He had to wait till she’d finished. There was a protocol to these space comm calls.

  “Max, I’ll take extra precautions. Owen and Ioan are discussing changes to the office. Spacedock security will be on their toes now, too, and Customs is taking it personally, an attack right next door. You keep doing whatever it is you’re doing that these people are desperate to stop. You mentioned Elliot Keele. I won’t let him bully or provoke us.”

  “That’s good sense,” Harry said. He and Max had gathered in Max’s office, with Lon omnipresent in the ship, as always. “I don’t like it—”

  “I won’t have it.” Max wasn’t prepared to be reasonable.

  Nor was Lon. “We’re heading home. There’s nowhere safer for Thelma than with us.”

  “Or on Zephyr tucked away in Owen’s clan’s range?” Harry suggested.

  Max stared at him. Barring a missile strike from space, that was probably true.

  Harry persisted. “And if whoever’s behind the attack on Thelma, or on the Sheriff’s Office if she happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time—”

  “You don’t believe that!” Lon objected.

  Harry folded his mech arms. “We could be the ones heading into danger. Do you really want to collect Thelma from a secure planet and drag her with us into peril?”

  “You’re twisting your argument,” Lon said. “If the attack on Thelma was an attempt to distract us, then by the time we’ve collected her, the danger will have passed.”

  His conscience, the one founded on a sense of duty, stabbed Max. If he went to collect Thelma, which he absolutely wanted to, what element of his duty was he risking?

  Thelma’s response, slightly delayed by the time lag, interrupted Lon and Harry’s argument and Max’s turmoil. “This is my decision. My safety is my responsibility. The Saloon Sector’s safety is yours, Max. Owen and I will take better precautions. I’ll sleep in the office. Do not return for me.”

  Max inhaled roughly.

  Harry remained still, waiting for his response, and Lon was silent.

  They were aware that she was right. Right on two counts. The first was that her safety was her responsibility, and they would fundamentally damage their relationships with her if they failed to respect her decision. The second factor was equally true. The attack on her in the Sheriff’s Office was an attempt to change Max’s plans. It would set a dangerous precedent if they allowed Thelma to present as his vulnerable point.

  “I’m trusting you to keep yourself safe,” Max said hoarsely. “I would sacrifice everything for you.”

  Harry nodded approval and walked out.

  Onscreen, Thelma smiled at Max, a wobbly smile. “I love you, too. Thank you for trusting me.”

  Stars, but he loved her! She’d earned his belief in her.

  Her smile vanished. “I know that if it was you who’d been attacked, I’d be dropping everything to race back here, and that you’
d be trying to talk me out of it. Harry would probably have to argue Lon and me down for hours, we’d be so set on rescuing you. So thank you for being more reasonable than me. Braver. It’s hard to let those we love face danger.”

  His job was dangerous. Partnering with Lon and Harry lessened some of that danger, but loving him brought its own stress. Thelma lived the tension that all security personnel’s families felt. Now, he understood viscerally the courage that required.

  When their comm call ended, Max exited his office.

  “I still don’t like leaving her at Zephyr,” Lon said.

  Max grunted agreement, but he was a man on a mission. He descended to the public deck and opened the hatch to the lounge where Carl was imprisoned.

  The cyborg sat at the kitchen table, working. He glanced up at Max’s entrance. Then his eyes narrowed as he took in the signs of Max’s tension.

  “Why are you here?” Max asked. “No more games or delays. You tell me or I call Anubis and kick you the hell off my ship.”

  “What’s happened?”

  Max stood by the hatch. “Thelma was attacked at the Sheriff’s Office on the Zephyr spacedock. The blaster marks on the reception desk show that they meant to kill her or Owen, the receptionist. His quick action, yprr reflexes, saved them. But it’s down to the bone now. Either you’re with me or against me as I work out what the hell someone’s trying in my territory.” He swiped at his comm unit, brought up the video of the attack on Thelma, and flicked it up on the lounge’s viewscreen.

  Carl watched in silence. Then he leaned back and met Max’s eyes. “It’s never a single reason, not with Covert Ops. But there are three major standpoints on why I am to make myself part of your life.”

  Max scowled at the idea that the cyborg had been ordered to embed himself in Max’s life, not just to infiltrate the Lonesome.

  “Group A wants you safe. You’re important. The President’s son. An heir to the Hwicce empire. You’re financially and politically connected and potentially powerful. I’m to be your bodyguard. The second group sees those same points, but considers you dangerous. They want you leashed. The third group want to use you. When you think about it, you’ll realize the lines between the groups blur.”

  “I’m aware that people want to use me,” Max said grittily.

  Carl nodded. “Trust issues. That’s why you taking Thelma as deputy got flagged.”

  “What do they want to use me for?”

  Carl rolled his shoulders, stretched his arms up and behind him. “I don’t like you. I suspect that’s why I was chosen. Cyborg capabilities, check. But also, you’re unlikely to subvert me to allying myself with you. I grew up on Serene. I’m a core-worlder, but I never had the privileges you enjoy.”

  “So envy keeps you from allying with me.”

  The Covert Ops agent shook his head. He’d cut his blond hair. “I don’t envy you. The level of power, both political and financial, that your family wields is plain wrong.” There was the slightest of pauses. “It’s not personal. Even after you trapping me here, it’s not personal. I’m sorry that Thelma was attacked. That wasn’t Covert Ops.”

  “I didn’t think it was, or this would be a very different conversation.”

  Carl lowered his gaze to the screen on the table. “Covert Ops will, however, take advantage of you surfacing to retrieve Thelma. Elliot Keele wasn’t part of my original mission, but the analysis I’ve put together…you need to share it, or allow me to share it, with Covert Ops. They can send someone to investigate Xlokk.”

  “Unnecessary,” Max said. “We’re here and we’re staying.”

  “You’re going to leave your girlfriend unprotected? That attack—”

  “Thelma graduated top of her class from the Galactic Justice academy. You didn’t do half as well as her. And she has allies, friends, on Zephyr.”

  Carl stared at him. “Ice in your veins. That’s what they say of Sheriff Max Smith.”

  Max didn’t have to justify himself to the cyborg. But his fists clenched. Commonsense pointed out that if he did return for Thelma, it would take the Lonesome over a week to reach Zephyr. Even if he ached to tuck her away safely on the Lonesome, the realities of space travel made an immediate response impossible. That was the bottom line. Thelma had not only chosen to be responsible for her own safety: she had to be.

  Max still wanted to punch Carl.

  Then he realized that this was the first time the Covert Ops agent had successfully provoked him into showing a physical emotional reaction. He unclenched his fists. “Thelma can look after herself.”

  Chapter 5

  Thelma woke up strapped to a hard surface with a metal ceiling high above her. From her left a tentacle, equally as metallic looking, appeared in her peripheral vision. She turned her head. She screamed.

  “This is why I’m not a people person,” said the twelve foot high, equally wide, multi-tentacled thing. It spoke from a central mouth, but the dots along its tentacles were likely vision, hearing and other sensors. “I retrieved you for Lon,” the thing said. “I’m Reynard.”

  “Wh…?” Thelma didn’t know what to ask first. Instinctively, she strained against her bonds.

  “I’ll have Lon talk to you.”

  She kept straining, twisting and writhing, only to halt abruptly as Max’s face appeared on the ceiling.

  Obviously he could also see her, because after a few seconds’ time lag, he scowled ferociously. “What the hell?” Onscreen, he jumped up from his chair in his office on the Lonesome.

  “What the hell have you done, Reynard?” Lon echoed.

  “Max.” At any other time, Thelma would have hated how weepy she sounded. She was like a heroine tied to train tracks in the first black and white movies from the Earth Evacuation Archive.

  Harry was suddenly front and center onscreen. He’d abandoned the micro-movements and poses he used to mimic humanity. He was brutally unmoving. “Reynard, you will listen to my next words with a minimum of eighty percent of your processing capacity.”

  Harry waited out the time lag in transmission.

  Reynard gathered in his tentacles so that he stood rather like a squat vase.

  Then Harry continued. “Reynard, you are responsible for Thelma’s physical safety and her emotional well-being until you have delivered her to us. Once Thelma is aboard the Lonesome, there will be a serious discussion about your behavior and your future. Until then, you will not bother us with your attempts at justification or evasion of responsibility. We have been too lenient with you, allowing your detachment from the sentient social world. That ends now. Begin practicing your social skills with Thelma. The state she is in when we receive her will be a major factor in determining your rehabilitation.”

  Harry’s tone gentled and his mech face regained mobility. “Thelma, honey, you are safe with Reynard, despite his actions to this point. You will have guessed that he is an AI. Lon is his sole friend, and I assume that Lon’s agitation at your being in danger caused Reynard to act. The comet helices that sparked the Space Rodeo and associated disruption of our lives are Reynard’s doing. You will be onboard the Lonesome in a week’s time. We will check on you twice daily. If you need to speak to us urgently, Reynard will put through the transmission. We have to deal with some stuff here. We’ll get back to you.” That “stuff” probably included Max’s fury.

  The viewscreen went blank.

  Thelma and Reynard were left regarding one another dubiously.

  “Would sedating you contribute to your well-being?”

  “No.”

  Reynard’s metal tentacles rippled. He extended two and undid Thelma’s restraints.

  She held very still until he withdrew. She knew she remained within his reach, but Lon and Harry had vouched for him—they’d also threatened him to ensure her welfare. She wasn’t sure to what extent she could trust Reynard and his reactions.

  “Food dispenser.” He pointed with a tentacle. “Waste disposal.”

  Thelma studied the
rudimentary bathroom facilities in a corner of the room. She glanced up at the ceiling. From the manner in which Max and the others had reacted there were cameras there, watching her. “I prefer privacy in the bathroom.”

  “Euphemisms. Organic mess. I will put a temporary wall in place. And a door. So much fuss.”

  It was a struggle, but she swallowed the retort that this was Reynard’s fault for kidnapping her.

  “This is your fault,” he said. “If you had stayed on the naval carrier Lon would not have fussed about you.”

  She swatted at one of his tentacles, a slap that spoke of her exasperation. “How the heck did you even get me out of the office?” She sat on the edge of the rack that had served as her bed.

  “Organics believe what their technology shows them. I altered what it showed.”

  Thelma boggled at the flat statement. Evidently, there were major holes in the spacedock’s security, and in the Sheriff’s Office’s. “Lon will want to know the details.”

  “He has already asked. I have shared with him my observations, plan, actions and analysis.”

  “Oh. Good.” She wrenched her gaze from Reynard to stare at her feet. They were bare. The AI had kidnapped her while she was sleeping. She wriggled her toes.

  The really interesting aspect of Reynard’s response was its validation of the information Harry had fed her: Reynard valued Lon as his only friend.

  Thelma knew more than almost everyone in the Federation about the nature of AIs. They were rare with just over a thousand of them in existence. Imitations of them existed, running a huge range of different operations, but only those powered by a raphus geode achieved true sentience.