Darkship Thieves

by Sarah A. Hoyt

  I got the impression of his glare, catlike eyes widening, mouth frowning. You're right. What are you, more appropriate perhaps.

  What I am, I answered, testily, is out here, with a job I don't understand.

  Let me see it.

  I hesitated, confused by what exactly he might mean by that.

  Look at the node, please, so I can see what's confusing you.

  He could see through my eyes? That was about as comfortable as being lost in someone's underwear. But I still didn't want to die, so I looked down at the open node, at the mass of pulsing capillaries, that made it look like a nest of very thin worms.

  The gold one, he gave me a mental image of the writhing caterpillar with the little gold sheen to it. Make it feed into the blue one. Use this tool to disconnect it, mental picture of a pincerlike thing. And this one to connect it, mental picture of a little spatulalike implement.

  I followed his instructions. With the mental pictures, it wasn't really hard. The idea that he was in my mind, giving me images directly to my mind, still gave me the shivers though. If he was knocking about in there, what else would he find? See? Think?

  Even Daddy Dearest had never invaded my privacy this far. I closed the node, and the tool box. The question was if the creature was this likely to become temporarily blind, and the nodes out here could go hairy, why was he traveling alone?

  There was a sense of displeasure from the other end, and then a curt, I don't work well with others.

  No, really? Would wonders never cease? I tried to keep that thought to myself, but from a certain hint of offended dignity coming from the other end, I suspected I'd failed.

  Is the node working now?

  No, sullen, with a hint of resentment. Kick it.

  Beg your pardon?

  Give it a good kick. Kind of stomp on it.

  I stared at the blister on the ship's skin. Was he joking? The node was out here, where it might rub a stray trunk in going through the powertrees, or where a microasteroid, even, might hit it. And a kick could fix it or, presumably, break it? He had to be joking.

  It's an old ship, came the tired answer. A very old ship. Used to be a teaching ship.

  Aiming the kick so it wouldn't open the cover, I slammed my foot against it. And now?

  For a minor eternity, no one answered. I was here alone, on the outside of the ship, with the eerie glow of the powertree globe to one side, and the eternal night of space to the other. The stars shining in that night seemed very distant, very small. For no reason at all, a memory of one of the last happy times before my Mom left came to mind.

  I was very young and we'd taken a family vacation to Pamplona, in the Southern European territories. And there, I'd seen some old ritual that involved countless people strolling around in the dark of night, holding candles. The windows had been ornamented with tapestries, and there had been flowers everywhere, making the night air redolent of wax and roses. I remembered leaning out a window, over the soft, silken tapestry, while my mom held me around the middle of my body. "Thena, look how lovely," she'd said, whispering in my ear.

  Thena. Is that your name?

  The creature's voice, directly into my mind, made me jump. I answered in offended dignity and horror that he'd been in my mind and seen that memory of all memories—and fear he'd think me soft and easy to subdue because of it—Athena Hera Sinistra, Patrician of Earth.

  Oh. Earthworm and inbred. Yes, yes, something to be proud of, he said, his tone just as haughty as I suspected mine had been. My name is Kit to my friends, but you may call me Christopher Bartolomeu Klaavil.

  Are you going to let me in? I asked.

  Your wish is my command, he said, in a voice that didn't sound the least like it. Look to your right.

  I did, in time to see the door open on the ship skin. I scrambled over with unseemly haste. Being on the outside and subjected to the creature's whim on whether or not to let me back in was not my idea of a rousing good time.

  He was inside the airlock, attired in a bright blue spacesuit, similar to mine, but clearly his size. Of course, that made one wonder, exactly, who had worn the suit I was wearing. I thought of the blonde woman in the picture. What had happened to her?

  His words, I don't work well with others, came to my mind and made me shiver.

  I never . . . His voice said in my mind. I wouldn't—I had the impression of a door, forcefully slammed down on his thoughts. Oh, hell, what does it matter, anyway. Please get in, so I can close the airlock.

  I obeyed, and he closed the outer door, then did something with a valve and a control on the wall. I could hear air hissing into this tight compartment. "What do you wish me to do?" he asked.

  I looked at him puzzled. His face was just visible through the helmet, half in shadows, making his catlike eyes even more alien and stranger.

  "You saved my life," he said. The voice had the tone of something spoken through clenched teeth. "I owe you a debt of gratitude. I don't think you can go much farther on the ship you used to come here. Your power reserve is almost empty and I don't know how to recharge it. Our tech is different. But I owe you my life, and so I must repay it any way you wish. Where do you wish to go?"

  "To Earth," I said immediately, without thinking.

  He cackled.

  "You said—"

  "I'll help you as I can, but that doesn't include an offer to have myself stuffed, mounted and hung in a museum as a specimen of forbidden bioengineering modifications." The air had stopped hissing in, and he now opened the interior door and motioned for me to go through ahead of him, which I did.

  He followed.

  "You're a Mule," I said, shivering. It was a leap of reasoning.

  He gasped. "No," he said. "Merely an ELF." And then, as though perhaps catching some trace of surprise from my thoughts. "An enhanced life form. I was bioengineered in a womb, via a designed virus."

  "With cat genes?"

  He shook his head, his face in shadows. "Of course not. The hair is an accidental, rare, side effect. And the eyes only look feline, because the function dictates form. They're best for seeing in the dark, tracking motion. With improvements to reflexes and speed of motion, they make people like me ideal for piloting harvester ships."

  "The darkships?"

  "Well, of course they're dark," he said. "We really don't want Earthworms . . . er . . . Earthers to catch us, do we? We work in the dark, and use ships without lights. Hence the modifications to my eyes. I work well in the dark."

  "But not in light," I said.

  "Don't get—"

  "Ideas," I said. "I'm not." We'd got to the compartment in the hallway, and I removed each piece of the suit, while he sometimes helped.

  "Your eyes have recovered," I said.

  He snorted. "No. But I'm using yours. Grossly inadequate."

  I tried not to think he was still in my mind, somehow, and also not to react to the insult, but my voice came out tight as I said, "What tech in the suit allows you to do that?"

  "The suit?" he said.

  "Isn't that what allows you to hear my thoughts? Use my eyes?"

  "No. You . . . It's . . . I don't know. It's one of the traits bioengineered into me. It is also bioengineered into navigators, who are normally the other half of a traveling power-collecting team. So a team can communicate without using any frequencies Earth . . . Circum harvesters could possibly intercept."

  I'm not telepathic, I thought in a panic. I've never—

  Yeah, he answered back in my mind. Neither have I with anyone but a nav, and my nav at that. It's a bonding thing. You have to be trained to do it. That's why I asked you to explain. No human I ever heard of has developed natural telepathy.

  Bio improvements are illegal on Earth, I said. It has to be natural.

  "It can't be," he said.

  I shook my head. I was still holding on to the last of the suit. It was the suit. It had to be the suit. I dropped the suit to the floor and then, very quickly, aimed a kick at my captor. There was
air and energy now, I could make him—

  He grabbed at my foot before it made contact and down I went, cracking my head against the floor of the hallway.

  "Do you like hitting your head, or is it just something you do to pass the time?"

  "Bastard," I said.

  He straightened his spine. "Quite possibly," he said. "By several definitions. Now, if you let me remove my spacesuit, I'll be glad to take you near Circum. Your ship should have enough fuel to make it a very short drop from my ship to Circum and my ship is dark enough, if we go to an unused bay area, we might not even be noticed. Your . . . harvesters must fly back regularly—what, once a week? To take back pods. You must go with them."

  I shook my head. Harvester ships never went to Earth. This I knew. It was why I'd been such a hit with harvester pilots. They might be stuck at Circum for years at a time. "No, they sent the energy some other way," I said.

  "How?" he sounded suddenly curious.

  "Don't know. Something invented by an ancient Greek, I think. Or a Frenchman. Or maybe Usaian. Something from one of his writings." Now he looked doubtful, so I exerted my mind. "Tekla, no, Telec . . . um . . . no, wait. Tesla."

  "Nikola Tesla?"

  "That," I said, triumphantly.

  He hid his face in his hands. When he looked up again, he was composed. "I'll take you into drop distance of Circum. I'm sure you still can find your way to Earth, anyway?"

  "Oh, I'm sure."

  "Right. At least," he added, his voice pensive. "It's not quite as certain a death as going near Earth, and the risk is worth it to be rid of you."

  Nine

  But an hour later, as he escorted me into the bay where the lifepod waited, he looked strangely hesitant.

  He opened the door to the lifepod for me, and waited till I got in. He looked concerned. Though his expression was not easy to read—not with those very odd eyes—there was a crease above his nose, and his eyebrows were drawn together beneath the mop of calico hair.

  "Anything wrong?" I asked, as I bent forward over the controls.

  He frowned more, glaring thunderously at me, as if I'd said something wrong. "No," he said. "I'm going to take you as close as I dare to one of the dark bays. It might not be very close to it, but I looked at your gauges and you have oxygen for at least an hour. And a ship that size should be easy enough to maneuver back."

  I nodded. He was probably just afraid of being captured. And I had other things to deal with.

  As he closed the top of my lifepod, tapped the front in what appeared to be a nervous gesture, and turned to walk away, I thought of what I was going to do when I got to Circum.

  I'd best find one of the harvesters first. Someone I could convince I was neither hallucinating nor drugged. It wasn't much fun going to Circum this time. I mean, my lifepod was completely encased in what must be the cargo bay of the ship. I could feel the maneuvering and turning, in a way, but more because the lifepod slid just a little bit this way and that.

  And I had a lot of time to think. A lot of time. Getting into quiet rooms, in the dark, to think was one of those things that several counselors, psychiatrists and terrified people had told me to do. I'd never taken their advice till now, when I had no choice. I failed to see what was so special about it. So here I was, sitting in the dark. And slowly smiling at the idea that I had not been very nice to the poor ELF in his darkship. I'd attacked him . . . Four? Five times? And by his view of it, had tried to kill him at least once.

  So why was he being so nice and taking me to Circum?

  I sat up suddenly, alarmed. What if he wasn't? What if this was some elaborate scheme to—I stopped, the mind boggling. To have me completely at his mercy? But he did. My attacks on him had been countered. I'd never managed to do more than, as he put it, making a hobby of cracking my head on the floor. Repeatedly.

  And besides, how could he have me more at his mercy now than he did when I was out there, on the ship, with nothing but a door he controlled between me and space?

  The truth was, he could have killed me any of a dozen times, in there. Oh, forget counted times, he could have killed me at any moment. I'd have been completely in his power. So . . . why hadn't he, exactly?

  Frowning at the memory of what I'd done to him, I couldn't figure it out. Anyone else—even those nice people who ran reformatories for young girls, and who had reason to be scared of Father and Father's money—would have killed me if they had a chance. At least they would have after I had tried to kill them. They'd just have told Daddy Dearest that there had been an unfortunate accident.

  But the ELF should have no more reason to be scared of Father than of anyone else from Earth. He had a far greater reason to be scared of me. He could have killed me at any time, and he hadn't. And now he was repaying my saving him—while saving myself—by serving as taxi service to a location that was dangerous to him.

  And he'd vibroed my slip on the repair setting, so that it was closed down the front, the silk shining slightly unevenly—clearly the man had no idea how to set a vibro, really—and lent me a brush to tame my hair, so that I didn't look like a refugee from a reeducation institute.

  Which meant . . .

  It wasn't possible he was stupid. No, really. He couldn't be. Not and keep anticipating me the way he did, let alone answering my jibes faster and more incisively than even Father—who just tended to yell. And it wasn't like he could expect kindness to me to pay him back. Father didn't know he existed and if he did, as a member of the ruling council of Earth, Father would be more interested in catching the darkship thief and imprisoning him and stopping the raids on the powerpods than in thanking him for saving me.

  The ELF couldn't even expect me to put out in recompense. Well . . . he could have, but he hadn't tried it and now he was taking me to Circum and unless the telepathy came with some sort of mind-sex setting he was screwed. Or rather, not.

  So . . . so it had to come down to he was mad. Mad, loony, crazy, touched in the upper works, driving with a defective power pack, flying without a stabilizer, brooming in the dark . . .

  Fortunately, his madness seemed to be of the kind that wanted to do me a favor, not the kind that would kill me on sight. So much the better.

  Having reached this point in my reasoning, I jumped at his voice in my head, icily polite and strangely calm for an obviously mad man. We're as close as I dare go now. The door is open. Please maneuver your pod out.

  As he stopped speaking, light came on—low-level light, granted—but enough for me to see the less reflective black of the membrane to outer space. Of course, I couldn't be sure that the door was open beyond that. But again, why would he kill me that way? Wouldn't it be a very strange way to kill someone? And one that might damage his ship, as he couldn't know if my pod would go out in an explosion?

  Right. Just a touch of paranoia, Thena. The result of growing up with Daddy Dearest.

  I started the pod to liftoff, aimed for the membrane and sped forward. By the time I crossed the membrane, I was going fast enough that the airlock went by in a blur. And then I was . . . Up-side-down. Up-side-down whichever way I turned.

  In space. Looking straight at the dark bays of Circum, the ones out of rotation for the harvesters.

  In my mind something echoed, that might have come from my friend the ELF, or else, might be completely imagined—it was that faint. Good luck.

  Probably imagined because, first of all, why would he wish me well, after all I'd done to him? He might balk at actually killing me, and it was only sane for him not to want me in the ship with him, headed back wherever he was going. But why would he wish me well, after everything I'd done?

  I had a memory of his eyes, wide and terrified as I tightened the garrotte around his neck. Right. The chances of his saying something more than "good riddance" were very low indeed. And second, there had been an almost wishful sound to his mind-voice, a sound I'd never heard from him. Right. So now I was imagining ELFs in my mind. Just great. Let's add madness to your many a
ccomplishments, Thena.

  Clenching my teeth tight, not looking behind at the darkship, I headed straight for the deserted bay in the middle, and crossed the outer membrane at speed. At which point the sort of inner voice that has kept me from killing myself a dozen times—at least—whispered to slow down. So I crossed the second membrane slower. Which was good, because it meant that I managed to stop the pod just behind the huge, blue metal harvester parked there.

  Earth harvesters were massive compared to the darkships. Still slim, mind you. Slim enough to maneuver between the powertree trunks and collect the powerpods. But they were more cigar-shaped, bright metallic, and looked like some decadent artist's depiction of a glorified sewing needle.

  Fortunately my inadequate pod was so small that I had plenty of room to park behind the harvester.

  As I opened the canopy, I wondered what I should do. That bulletin claiming I was in the midst of a psychotic episode probably made it unadvisable to just use the two-way com and tell everyone I was here and to come get me pronto, with the red carpet, the fawning and the—please, for the love of heaven—ready bathwater.

  If I commed my arrival, I'd just get medtechs stacked three deep and dying to put me to sleep and deliver me to . . . who knew whom? I wasn't sure that Daddy Dearest was even alive.

  On the other hand, I had to talk to someone eventually unless I planned to be one of those space legends, living in hiding in the space station and seen only by the unlucky few.

  I'd go in. Go in and find some of my harvester friends. They'd listen to me. They wouldn't believe that I was psycho.

  Still, the idea of marching in there unprotected set off alarms, and put cold shivers down my spine. Unfortunately, and contrary to normal procedure, I'd failed to beg, borrow or steal a burner from the ELF. Well, it would have been stealing for sure. Even he wouldn't be crazy enough to give me a weapon.

  But I hadn't stolen it—frankly because he was so much faster than I, he would have taken the weapon back and possibly shoved it somewhere unpleasant. I smiled faintly despite myself. I'd found someone who could match my speed and I was starting to understand why those who tangled with me usually got scared. Looking down at my feet, I realized I had only the weapon I'd first taken with me—the thick silver heel of my boot.