by J. N. Chaney
“Yes, yes, yes. Thank you,” Wak-wak says.
Tired and suddenly hungry, I head for the control deck to meet with Van. My stomach will have to wait.
Van shares a sandwich from a small fridge he keeps on the control deck. A hot meal would be paradise, given our return to freezing our butts off. From the void, to an ice world, back to the void, my friends and I keep finding ourselves without climate control. It’s like we forgot to pay the universe rent.
“You don’t understand how hard it is to keep a ship like this operational,” Van says. “I pick up strays at every port, from ragamuffins like your village castoff to strange animals with alien biologies and dark secrets,” Van says. “That’s one of the reasons I keep the Hwelas around. They’re harmless, but they scare off most stowaways before they become a problem.”
“That’s not why you called me here, is it?” I ask.
“No, I wanted to come clean.” He leans to one side of his chair, his posture disdainful of the formality normally surrounding a ship captain. “I wasn’t just looking for you in hopes of a reward that might or might not come from the resistance.”
I glance around the control deck, surprised to find it empty—no Hwelas working diligently at their stations, none of my friends in the room to witness this conversation. With most of the electronics powered down, there won’t be recorded evidence of this conversation.
He continues. “Tamok took me aside. Came personally to the spaceport where I was refueling and dumping the little lost souls my Hwelas had collected.”
“Lost souls?”
“You don’t want to know. Beetles, snakes, a baby goat. I don’t know how they collect their menageries. If they weren’t excellent in every other way, I wouldn’t bother with their eccentricities. A ship is no place for pets.”
“You said they scared away stowaways.”
He cocks an eyebrow. “You were listening. Good. Nothing is ever that simple though, is it? The Hwelas seek out baby things—puppies, kittens, little chicks—but discourage runaways, rogues, and predators. They are walking nightmares, don’t think I don’t know it, excellent at imbuing my ship with a reputation for mystery and danger. Have you been below decks?”
“No.” I could have told him about Shaina’s discovery but decide to make him work for every morsel of information—because instinct tells me he’s holding back a lot of important details.
“Don’t go down there without a flashlight. Half the Hwelas sleep in the nooks and crannies of the ship. You don’t want to stumble into a cluster of them in the dark. Horrifying,” he says. “You want nightmares? That’s how you get nightmares.”
“Get to the point, Van. Did Tamok hire you? Is that the big reveal you’re working toward?”
“He did, but so did Wist Hadrian and the Dark Eye—separately, of course. They think you have a secret and promised me a new ship if I could figure out what it is.”
Pieces are falling into place now. The convenient appearance of Van’s ship on the ice world makes sense. He’s after a big reward—a guaranteed reward—not just a vague hope that doing the right thing will earn him karma points and a gold star from the resistance.
“I don’t keep secrets,” I say.
“Everyone keeps secrets.”
“What’s yours?” I ask.
“Oh, you’re quick. Caught me off guard.”
“And yet you are able to stall and get your bearings before answering,” I say. “How long have you been a master of subterfuge? I feel like I’m fighting above my weight class.”
“That sounds like a compliment, Orphan, but is it? Are you calling me a cheat or acknowledging my finely tuned intellect and good sense?” he asks.
“I’ve got an idea. Tell me what Tamok, Wist, and the Dark Eye offered you and what secret you think I’m hiding.” I keep my hands away from the jumpsuit pocket where I have the broken tablet concealed inside a generic case. The device is one secret I’m not sharing. Keeping it to myself has nearly gotten me and my friends killed. The old version of Hank Murphy would have weighed the pros and cons of keeping it concealed and made a decision based on facts.
The new me understands the device is the key to everything, and none of these people have proved their good intentions, not even my childhood friend.
Van sighs. “The Dark Eye thinks you’re hiding tech. Tamok thinks you’re making secret alliances. Don’t ask me with who, but he’s pretty worried about it. Probably thinks you and the Dark Eye are still working together no matter how angry he was when he got back to the Sarsten system.”
I wait for the rest.
“Wist believes you are the secret. He thinks some magical power will make you the ultimate victor in the war that’s coming, and he wants to be on the right side when it’s over. That’s always been his way,” Van says.
“You know him, then?”
“He was at Vandoran, just like me. That was a long time ago. We were all good when that war started. None of us escaped without a prize.” He rolls up his sleeves, then traces tattoos around his forearms for several long seconds.
He rolls his sleeves down the moment recognition flashes in my eyes.
“Those tattoos are covering scars,” I say.
“Yeah, the worst imaginable. Lost both my arms in the battle. Cut clean off. Had them put back on. Now they hurt all the time—constant reminder. Nightmares never leave you when the pain that causes them throbs in your bones day and night.”
I turn in my seat, pretending to get comfortable. In reality, I just want the tablet as far from the man as possible. One random glance, a keen observation of the weight in my cargo pocket, and a bit of intuition, and he could know I’m hiding something important.
“I can’t help you, Van. Did you think I would just tell my life’s story and hand over everything I’ve worked for?” I say. “If I could unload my burden, I would. You don’t want that. More importantly, I don’t know what your patrons are looking for. I’m just Hank Murphy. I want to protect my friends and find my way home. Is that too much to ask?”
“No, Murphy. That is not much different than my own goals.” He sits straighter and claps his hands once. “Well, I thought I would try the direct approach. Maybe you will learn to trust me and save us both a lot of pain and suffering.”
“Thanks for picking up me and my friends, Van. I owe you, but I don’t owe you everything.” I head for the door but stop at the threshold.
“We could be good friends,” Van says.
“Sure, but not until we can trust each other,” I say.
He laughs. “The day you start trusting people will be the day everything comes crashing down like an Overlord raid.”
I nod and leave, shutting the door behind me. Relief feels like a drug. The confrontation took a lot out of me. All I want is sleep. My bunk calls me. I can’t resist its siren song.
“The captain says it’s your turn to take a shift,” Shaina says via comms. “I need a break before I break.”
“On my way.” My morning ritual isn’t much these days. With everything rationed, including warm water, I decide against a shower and grab a protein pack on the way out the door as I sip Goliath sector coffee, which doesn’t deserve the name.
Patty-pats purrs. I look down to see her weaving between my legs.
“That wasn’t a joke about eating cat burgers.” I sip the drink and watch the animal.
Patty-pats presses harder against my shins, then continues her figure eight around my feet.
“You’re making it hard to walk. What if my elevator gets here?”
No response from the feline stowaway.
“How do you feel about Protheans, huh Patty-pats?” I ask.
She stops, looks up at me, and narrows her eyes.
“That struck a nerve,” I say, taking another sip. “Admit it. You’re a Prothean agent.”
The cat stares, swings its tail once, and continues to stare.
I contact Shaina via our private comms—which we kept from our survival
gear. It doesn’t work everywhere in the ship, but she’s not far away right now. “Murph for Shaina.”
“I read you. And can you hurry up? I need relief. Falling asleep at the helm is a mark of the amateur, and that’s not me,” she says.
“Who else is on the control deck?”
“No one. The lift should be there,” she says.
The door opens. I pick up Patty-pats and step in. “Be ready to hide, okay.”
The cat nestles into the crook of my arm and purrs like an electric motor.
“I’m going to tell Van you’re the secret I’ve been hiding if he catches me in a lie I can’t escape.”
Patty-pats holds my gaze and swishes her tail. Her poker face is solid.
“I wish you were a dog. At least I would know if you’re happy or sad.”
She meows. A swipe of her tail emphasizes her indifference to my concern.
The doors open when we reach the top. I stride into the room with Patty-pats riding like a queen.
“What in the abyss is that?” Shaina asks.
“Stray. Found her in the hallway. Don’t tell Van,” I say and take a seat at the main instrument bank. “Get some rest, Shaina. We’re all going to need it before long. The next system is Sarsten.”
Before long, I’m alone with my feline co-pilot and partner in crime. Absolutely nothing is happening. This part of space travel is always a grind.
I monitor distant ships, Prothean scouts ships and a few larger vessels scouring the void in formation. One is never quite with the others. I can’t prove it, but I suspect that one is Axu.
Why is he different, and what makes him so determined to catch me and steal the tablet? I ask the cat.
Predictably, I get only a tail swipe for an answer.
17
Four hours into my watch, the door opens without warning. I thrust Patty-pats between my feet and scoot my chair in farther than normal. It feels strange to sit this close to the keyboard, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
“What are you hiding between your feet, Doctor Hank Murphy,” Zedas says as he approaches.
“Nothing?”
“What is making that vibrating sound?”
“Purring. It’s called purring.” I hand Zedas the calico.
The little fur ball squats in his palm, paws drawn up under its body, ears flat against his head. But it doesn’t hiss or bolt into the shadows. She just sits there, being a cat, which is to say- mildly disdainful and angry and appealing, all at once.
“Very fine coloring.” He bows to Patty-pats, then makes eye contact with the cat. “I am Zedas-Duryan, friend to the Doctor. We are well met.”
Patty-pats flicks her tail.
Zedas waits.
Patty-pats only watches him.
“Rude,” Zedas says. “Why doesn’t it return the greeting? Who does this creature think she is?”
“You’ve never seen a cat before, have you?” I ask.
“This is a cat?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I thought it would be bigger. It is said even Protheans fear the cats of Mot-galeal.” Zedas frowns, then places the animal on the control panel.
I scoop Patty-pats up. “Not there. She’ll walk on the keys and send the ship through a star.”
“Doubtful,” Zedas says.
The door slides open.
“Good morning, Murph,” Van says. He’s wearing a new uniform, this one with the rank insignia of a true captain.
I snatch Patty-pats by the scruff of her neck and shove her under the desk. She complains loudly. I start coughing and talking louder than necessary to cover the noise. “And that is why we have to keep good logs of this system, Zedas-Duryan.”
He waves his open hand near my eyes like a field medic. “Are you well, Murph?”
“Yes, of course. Never better.”
Zedas frowns. “Your tone is very unusual, and your words bear no relation to what we were talking about.”
“Oh, Van, I didn’t see you come in,” I say, standing and pushing my chair to cover the space below the workstation.
“Is that so?” He approaches his captain’s chair, eyes lingering on me suspiciously until he checks the work logs. “You amaze me, Murphy. I trust you to take a watch, and you scan the system for secrets, maybe for a way to abandon me and my ship. How do you think that makes me feel after all I’ve done for you?”
“That isn’t what I was doing.” I was doing a lot of scans, but not for the reasons he assumes. I’m casting a much wider net, attempting to learn as much as I can about the Goliath sector. It’s about time to be proactive. Everything I’ve done since coming through the gate feels reactive.
Words fail me. I need a way out, but deception isn’t my strong point.
Zedas grinds out a chuckle. “There is nothing wrong with looking for Earth, Doctor Hank Murphy. But I told you it is impossible.”
I study Zedas, hoping his ruse will do better than my lame attempt to change the subject.
Van rolls his eyes, then waves away Zedas’s comment. “Orphans. Always obsessed with going home. Is Earth such a great place?”
The cat bumps against my leg, forcing me to keep Van busy. “I think so. You’ve never been so you can’t know how amazing my people can be—on a good day.”
“Well good for you,” he says, then sniffs.
“I want to explore every world in the Goliath sector, but none of them will be home.” I edge around the workstation, herding Patty-pats toward a better place to hide. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” Van says. “But you’ll never find Earth without the final gate key and the gate ship.”
“Really,” I say. “That’s interesting. You know a lot more about the tech the Dark Eye wants than you admit.”
“Maybe I do. What’s wrong with that?” He moves closer, a dangerous look in his eyes.
“Nothing, unless you plan on stabbing me in the back and stealing it from me,” I say.
Patty-pats sits down, looking up at us.
I give her a little nudge—which does nothing to get her moving.
Stupid cat.
Zedas, without warning, sits on the floor to begin meditating. His decision feels random, even for him, until I realize he has tucked the cat between his massive legs, completely concealed from Van’s view.
Well played, Z-man. Well played.
Van stares in confusion. “You’re going to do that right here? Dogans.”
I draw Van’s attention in the other direction. “Let’s get back to the part where you’ve been lying to me.”
“I didn’t lie to you. Just left some things out. Who else in the Goliath sector has been so upfront? Tell me that, Murphy.”
Alerts chime on several of the screens. Van looks to his controls. I take a seat at another view screen in time to see a squadron of Overlords appear on the tactical grid map.
“Looks like we’re on the same side again,” Van says. “Trust me until we lose these hunters. Then I can prove myself and maybe we can help each other.”
Another round of alerts chime from the view screens. Then another.
“That’s three squadrons, all entering the system from different entry points.” Dread fills my guts. I hide my reaction. “They really want us bad.”
“You murdered Overlord Anaximander. The word is out,” Van says.
I scan for more information. “That seems like a long time ago.”
“It wasn’t,” Van says. “All hands, report to your duty stations. Overlord threats detected.”
Hwelas rush into the room. Wak-wak stops right beside Zedas. I shoo him toward his station.
“But…”
“Not to worry, Wak-wak. I got you covered,” I say.
“This is good, to be covered?” He clicks doubtfully.
I point to the Overlord ships on the view screen. “We have enemies all around us.”
“Wak-wak is tired of so many Overlords and Protheans.”
“Me too.” I almost
pat him on his spiny shoulder but think better of it.
Van growls profanity as he analyzes reports sent to him by the Hwelas. They find every anomaly in the system, checking to see if there could be enemies hidden by solar radiation, or debris, or a number of other factors unique to the void of space.
“It’s time to leave this place,” Van says. “We’ll leave a signature when we make the jump, but it can’t be helped. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not easy to follow system to system. None of us are traveling in a straight line. At least some of our enemies will wind up in a different star system. That’s just the way things work.”
“Some of them will follow the same nav points,” Shaina argues as she storms onto the control deck, jumping into the argument after hearing only a few words. “You know better than to count on luck, Van.”
“Sometimes that is all there is,” he says. “I’m the old smuggler.” He steeples his fingers, leans forward, and looks her in the eyes. “With an emphasis on old. That proves I’m good. Anyone who can stay in the game as long as I have should be respected. It ain’t easy.”
“Engines are ready,” a Hwelas announces.
“Nav points are triple checked,” Tak-tak says.
Wak-wak and other Hwelas I don’t know work frantically at their stations. Again I catch one of them chewing on a keyboard when he thinks no one is looking.
“Wak-wak?” I ask.
“Yes? You have a question?” He folds all of his appendages and waits patiently for me to continue.
“Is there a reason your people chew on computer keyboards?” The question feels invasive the moment I ask it.
Wak-wak’s eyes narrow to the point of invisibility. A long, uncomfortable moment passes. “We have been too long on the ship. I will explain to the captain who is good that we must have sunshine and fresh air.”
“Sunshine?”
His eyes return to their disturbingly dextrous study of me. “This surprises you.”
“I don’t normally associate spiders with sunshine.”
He shakes his neck-less head. “We are not spiders. Do not fear us. Trust the Hwelas.”
“Murphy,” Van says as he finishes a computation. “This is going to be a long one. Might as well get some rest. Go check on that runaway of yours. He’s been spending a lot of time on the observation deck.”
