Analog Science Fiction and Fact - March 2014

by Penny Publications

  She wasn't surprised when he drew a pistol from his suit. Over the barrel of her pistol, she watched him aim.

  They both laughed.

  "Doesn't change a thing," she said.

  "Maybe. Maybe not. You might not hit me."

  "Same goes for you."

  "Look," he snarled, "this is pointless. Let it go and walk away. You seem a nice girl. I don't want to have to kill you. I guarantee my bosses are a lot nastier than yours. I'll go all the way to the wall. If you do kill me, then what?"

  "Who's to know? I clean up, jettison the trash, and continue on my merry. Over, done with, gone."

  "Never happen," he said."You're soft."

  She laughed at him.

  "Wilder, you don't know me. A judgment based on a single day's knowledge, like to get you killed." The gun never moved. "I was happy to help out someone in distress. I'm just as happy to remove a threat. Or competition.

  Now get in your suit and get the hell off this ship before I shoot you for the hell of it."

  Wilder didn't blink; she didn't flinch.

  "Look..." he stopped, embarrassed. He raised eyebrows at her.

  "Elise," she supplied.

  "Right. Elise. I'm sorry. I won't forget again." He looked pained. "But you're in an untenable position. I'm about to lose my patience. You don't want that to happen."

  "Make your move, tough guy," she said.

  "You don't want to piss me off, girl," Wilder said.

  "Jam your condescension," she said.

  He was certain he could put two through her, but he wasn't close enough to the wall or floor to kick out of her way. He estimated maybe a ten percent chance to avoid a fatal shot.

  She watched him nerve himself for the shot. Her attention focused on his trigger finger. One twitch, and she would put a bullet in his head, followed by two more.

  "Don't try me," she warned.

  He laughed. "I've had enough of your mouth."

  "Zip it, jerk."

  "Harpy."

  "Sleaze."

  "You don't get it," Wilder said. "You don't win this, girl!"

  "And you don't get away with all your brain cells, boy!"

  Their patience broke at the same moment.

  "I'm taking this ship!" she snapped.

  "I'm taking Holland!" he snarled.

  A long, quiet moment passed.

  "What?" they both said, and laughed again.

  "You're here for the ship? I'm here for him. Holland," Wilder said. "We're all bollixed up because of a miscommunication."

  "You drew first, Wilder. That's no miscommunication." Elise said. "I'm here for the ship. Holland decided he didn't have to pay the rest of his lease."

  "Are you serious?" he guffawed.

  "Yes."

  He lowered his gun and tossed it to her. She snagged it with her left hand. Her pistol never wavered from his head.

  He put up his hands.

  "If I'd known, I'd have just said, no games," he smiled. "I don't see any reason to fight."

  She didn't move.

  "You can put yours down now," he said.

  "Why?"

  "Because I gave you mine. I would have—"

  "Why do you want him?" she clarified.

  "Does it matter?" he countered. "You don't need him. It has to be a pain to keep him quiet."

  She allowed that it was that.

  "So let me have him. I slagged my oxygen unit because I thought I'd set a beacon on my ship and fly his back. Give me Holland and the replacement slab, and I'll be on my way. Everyone wins."

  She considered.

  "It would solve some problems," she replied. "But what did he do?"

  Wilder shook his head. "Even if I knew, that wouldn't be part of the deal. Client privilege. As it happens, I don't know. My interest began and ended when my boss said 'fetch.' I don't know what he did and I don't care."

  "Cold-blooded, aren't you?"

  "Elise, it's a job. I'm sure you've done things you didn't want, just because the money said so. No difference here. They sent me to find Efram Holland, and I did. The question now is, what'll it take for you to hand him over? Money? I have some."

  She sniffed. "I won't take money. Not for a person. That's not what I do."

  "You draw the line in strange places, you don't mind my saying," Wilder said.

  "It's my line to draw."

  "So it is," he replied. "I didn't mean to offend you. It was a legitimate offer."

  Elise lowered her gun.

  "I want some wine. You want some wine?"

  "What's your deal with wine?" he asked.

  She shrugged. "You know what gets recycled on a small ship. I don't drink the water unless I have to."

  "Reasonable. I knew a pilot once who wouldn't eat food that wasn't artificial. He didn't trust real food. Everyone's got a bug about something," Wilder said meditatively.

  "What's yours?"

  "Oh," he said. "I have a problem with rice."

  "Rice?"

  "Yeah. When I was a boy, I had a dog used to sleep under my bed. You know how little kids are. Slipped my mind. Two or three days, I remember I used to have a dog. I looked under my bed. Not there. Under the porch. I thought he was moving. Thought he was maybe sick. I pulled him out and realized he was dead. Maggots." Wilder shuddered. "Since then, I have a problem with rice."

  "Sorry."

  "Don't worry about it."

  They passed a globe of white wine back and forth in the kitchenette. She handed him his pistol.

  "You're trusting," he said. "But thank you."

  "Not that trusting," Elise shook her head.

  "You don't get the clip until you leave."

  He looked down. Sure enough, she'd palmed the ammunition. He laughed.

  "Nice move, that."

  "Thank you."

  "Listen," he started, "earlier, we got a little rough with each other. I wanted to apologize. I try not to be rude unless it's necessary."

  She smiled. "It was all an act intended to intimidate the helpless little girl, is that it?"

  "You're not helpless. Yes, though. I don't have hard feelings." He stuck out his hand.

  She thought about it for a second, and shook with him. They both had firm grips.

  "Thank you for the apology," she said. "I meant every word I said, by the way."

  He laughed and she smiled.

  After a moment or two, she said, "What happens to him?"

  "I told you—"

  "I know what you told me," She cut him off.

  "Don't bullshit me."

  "Probably he'll die," Wilder said. "I don't know the particulars."

  She rolled her hand in the air.

  "If it were simple, I'd be here to kill him. Wouldn't need to get aboard for that. I could kill him anywhere or hire it done wherever he stopped. They send me, or men like me, when they're particular about the how."

  "You don't strike me as a thug."

  "I'm whatever my employer needs me to be."

  "So the question is, can I live with that?" She toyed with her wine.

  "That's the question," he agreed.

  She drained the bulb.

  "Yeah," she said. "I'm pretty sure that I can."

  "All right," Wilder said. "Good deal."

  "First thing, we need to get your life support up. You want to start that? Or don't you trust me here alone?"

  Wilder shook his head. "That's fine.

  Shouldn't take me but an hour."

  "I'll get our boy suited and ready to go. Let me know when, and I'll float him over."

  "Good enough," he said. At the lock he slipped into his suit. He dogged the helmet, grabbed the sealed slab, and cycled the airlock.

  She watched him go. The moment he was out the lock, she kicked for the bedroom, moving fast.

  The radio crackled as Wilder pressed the chin plate in his helmet. "Installed. I'm activating the colony now."

  "Roger that. Holland is suited."

  He waited until the board
went green. As soon as he confirmed the algae would bloom he headed for the airlock.

  Outside, he jetted toward the Adage. He rounded the hull to find Elise was already outside the airlock, with Holland's suit trailing along behind her. She hadn't seen him approach, exactly as he intended. He emergency-burned his suit jets and collided with her. She bounced toward the aft of the Adage with a scream. He stopped his momentum.

  "Sorry, but I decided I want the ship too," Wilder said. He snagged Holland's tether. Breath fog obscured the man's faceplate. He watched Elise drift across the hull. She swore as she bounced.

  "Sorry, sweetheart, but I won't drag this guy back only to find that what the boss is after was in the ship the whole time."

  He tapped a control on the suit sleeve. He had preprogrammed the Luas to activate thrusters and put more kilometers between itself and the Adage, out of reasonable range of Elise's suit thrusters. The Luas pulled away.

  He shook his head. Bad luck for her.

  "You shouldn't have trusted me," he said.

  The channel crackled and her calm voice said, "I didn't. The suit is empty."

  He grabbed for Holland's suit. He could tell as soon as he shook it that it was true. She must have stuffed a damp cloth in the helmet to fog the glass.

  "Where is he?"

  In a muffled voice, Elise said, "I told you: I didn't need him. I jettisoned him without the suit."

  Wilder thought hard. She'd be trying to get back inside the Adage, of course. He thrust toward the airlock. He sealed it from the inside so she couldn't follow. He headed for the second airlock, aft. When it was sealed, he covered the inside of the vessel as thoroughly as he could. She wasn't in the ship.

  He went into the cockpit. He hoped he could put a quick end to her; she had shown him mercy. He couldn't let her live. Out of the question. A quick scan showed the Adage carried no weapons. Maybe he could orient the engines and crisp her. It was a quick death, preferable to asphyxiation. He said as much.

  "You're all heart, you son of a bitch," she spat. "But I'll take my chances."

  "Please yourself," he said. "It's a dead-end either way. I thought I'd give you a quicker way out."

  Com static.

  "No smart-ass comments?"

  No reply.

  "No begging? Good," he smiled. "I like a woman with dignity. It's just bad luck, Elise. Believe me, I am sorry."

  Silence.

  "I'll record a message for someone back home, if you want." The silence grated. "Come on, Elise. No last words? I thought you had more pluck than that."

  The speaker crackled.

  "Nice ship you have here, Wilder," Elise said. "Not sure about the décor. A bit cramped, weren't you?"

  He ground his teeth. Somehow, she had made it to the Luas! No matter. Even with Holland dead, he might still salvage the mission.

  "Don't see many ship-to-ship missiles on runabouts this small. By the way... how far do you think you'll get before I blow you apart?" Elise's voice gave away her smile.

  Wilder growled. "What do you want?"

  "You know what I want. I want the ship. I couldn't care less about you. I don't want to destroy the ship and I don't want to kill you. But you have what I want, and that drops your stock significantly. We work it out, or I blow you to atoms and sell this ship on Phobos. They're always looking for ships.

  "Even if I felt like it, what makes you think I won't just blow you up after the exchange?"

  "I'll shut down all your non-essentials except life support and emergency power. You'll have to power up before you can get to the weapons systems. That gives me, minimum, twenty minutes to get gone."

  "We're seriously going to do this?" he asked.

  "I'm almost back now. I'll meet you there."

  "Fine." The woman had been fair with him.

  Even he would admit she had been fairer than he deserved. So much the worse for her.

  She was waiting outside the airlock, well out of combat range.

  "Get a move on, Wilder," she said, "and you'd better make sure I don't see you on my screens again."

  "Don't worry," he said. "You won't see me coming."

  The implication hung there.

  She gestured, and he activated his suit thrusters.

  "Sooner or later," he said to himself. "Sooner or later."

  Elise watched him go. She didn't trust him as far as the end of her nose. Once he was aboard the Luas he'd see her bluff. She hadn't been aboard his ship at all.

  She scrambled into the airlock. She needed to move. She readied the ship. Time was short.

  As soon as he reached the Luas he realized something was wrong. The cockpit was dim, but the readout panels glowed with full power.

  The systems were fine. Checking the main screen, he saw he had full power and a clean atmosphere. She hadn't powered the systems down. She hadn't been in his ship at all!

  He laughed aloud.

  "I can't believe I bought that!"

  "Okay, so I was bluffing," her reply came over the open channel. "Sue me."

  "What's to stop me now, Elise?" he asked. "I've got all the marbles."

  "I don't know. Good will?" she replied. "I've been straight with you, Wilder. You could just walk away."

  "Sweetheart, you don't know me very well." Strapped into the pilot's chair, he reached out and readied his weapons.

  "Oh, I know you better than you know me."

  "That so?"

  "Yes, Wilder, that's so." She sounded distracted.

  "Well then, tell me what you know?" He turned off the safeties.

  "You just powered up your missiles," Elise replied.

  "Good guess."

  "Thank you. Now it's your turn. Want to guess what I'm doing?"

  Wilder narrowed his eyes.

  "Go ahead. Speak." Elise's voice was playful.

  "What? What's your game?" Wilder sounded startled over the open com.

  "Oh, sorry," Elise said. "That wasn't for you, Wilder. Go ahead, Holland," Elise said. "Say 'hi.'"

  Wilder clenched his fists as the hesitant voice, slurred but intelligible, said, "H-hello. Hello, Wilder. Did Mr. Quill send you?"

  "I'll be a son of a bitch," Wilder said. "How...?"

  Elise retorted, "Does it matter? I've got Holland, I've got the ship. You blow up the ship, you lose. You need him alive, right? You raised on a busted flush, Wilder. Call it a learning experience and let it go. Turn your ship toward Pluto, and burn hard." Her voice tightened. "You have ten seconds."

  "Don't try to bluff me again. Adage has no weapons. Sure, you fooled me with the suit trick, but you can't fool your way around a missile."

  "If you're so sure," Elise said, "fire."

  "You've got no chance," Wilder said. "I can do whatever I want. You're out of this."

  "If you're sure, then make your play. Five seconds, Wilder."

  "No deal, bitch," he said, and heated up a missile. Quill wanted Holland alive, but would settle for his death. He could still count this as a success. He readied the missile.

  Before he could launch, the com relayed her last words to him.

  "Watch your mouth."

  As he reached for the firing stud, the Betty shot around the hull of Adage. She closed the distance and fired her own missile at Wilder's ship.

  He had just a moment to realize what happened.

  "... jesus..."

  The Luas was a fireball.

  In the cockpit of Betty, Elise shut down her weapons systems. She craned her head to look at Holland. She had taken the sleep inducer off him and slapped him awake to speak to Wilder. She gambled on that, but it paid off. It kept Wilder stunned long enough for her to get the Betty moving. Holland clung to the wall.

  "Ready to head back?" she said.

  "I have a choice?" He was very still.

  "You have two choices. Go home or stay here." Elise gestured at the debris field. The cloud of scrap didn't resemble a ship at all.

  Holland had made his choice already. There were times to pre
ss your luck, and times not to press your luck. It seemed to him that all the recent times not to press his luck involved this woman.

  "Ma'am, if it's all the same to you, I'd like to go home."

  She smiled and tossed him a fresh patch. He slapped it on his neck without comment and went limp.

  She brought the Betty back around and reattached to the underside of the Adage. Elise shut down again. She walked Holland through the airlock and sealed it.

  Once he was back in bed, she resumed course for Lunar orbit. After the initial burn, she drifted into the kitchenette, liberated some more of Holland's wine, and settled in to finish Jane Eyre.

  Eight days later, she guided the Adage into a private facility on Luna's far side. After docking, she transferred Holland to the Betty and eased her ship away. She backed out of the hangar, swung around to the bright side, and pulled into her berth.

  Two men dressed in military blues met her at the dock. They took Efram Holland from her.

  "Welcome back, Elise," the older man said.

  "Good to be home," she replied. "The ship's delivered. And he's alive," she said. "Make sure I get the bonus."

  "Absolutely," Smith said.

  The younger of the two said, "Any trouble out there?"

  "Naah," she said with a shrug. "Nothing to speak of."

  * * *

  Another Man's Treasure

  Tom Greene | 6973 words

  Illustrated by Vincent DiFate

  Maggie and her kids threaded their way between the mounds of garbage toward home. They wore baggy CBRN suits and rubber boots. Their hoods were thrown back, and their respirators dangled loose around their necks. Juno carried the salvage bucket and swung it with each step. Alex was talking.

  "I found an article about groundhogs. Also known as woodchucks or whistlepigs."

  "Whistlepigs?" Juno said. "You're making that up."

  "Nuh-uunh," Alex said. "It was a printout from an old online book."

  "What else did it say?" Maggie said.

  Alex hitched up the waist of his hand-medown hazmat suit—he was only eight and hadn't grown into it yet.

  "It said groundhogs are North America's largest ground squirrel. Up to sixty cee em long and weigh four kay gee. How much is that in English, Mom?"