Darkship Thieves-ARC

by Sarah A. Hoyt

  I shook my head, at the same time as one of the broomers—a young dark haired woman—protested, "But that was because we thought she was dead."

  "Right. So the minute she shows up, you pile brooms on her. Do any of the rest of you work for your supper?"

  I took a sip of my beer. "I like mucking with brooms," I said. "Sit down Ettiene. I need to talk to you." I gave the rest of the room the beady eyeball. "The rest of you scat. I need to talk to Ettiene in private. You can come back when I tell you to. I promise not to kill your brooms."

  They rushed out. Like most semi-literate societies, broomers thrive on lore, but I wondered exactly what the lore about me said, that all of them were so prompt to get out. Hell, most of them knew who I was, had been my friends for years. What did they think I was going to do if they didn't run? Burn their feet off?

  Now that I thought about it, I very well might. At least back in the days when I didn't have to explain to Kit why I'd done so.

  I looked back down at the open broom in front of me, and Ettiene started pacing, which I knew meant he was about to talk, but before he could get a word out, someone ran in—or rather someone loped in, dragging one of his legs. Fuse. I stood up, because I knew what was coming. I was right too.

  Fuse rushed me, screaming "Thena, Thena, Thena." He was a good six feet tall and he'd been—before his accident—a big, beefy man and not ugly with it.

  Something had happened to him after the accident, because he'd never fully recovered his weight and looked stringy and underfed. I didn't know exactly what had happened to him, after that claw fell on him, except that he'd been in regen for weeks, and this was the best they could do. his father had since had another son, to replace him as an heir.

  I had grown used to him, I supposed, but after all the time away, I had to make an effort not to flinch away from his half-paralyzed face, with the permanently droopy eye and the slouching down mouth. He kissed me on the cheek, a slobbery kiss, like a small child's. I resisted an impulse to wipe my cheek. I wondered, out of the blue, if Eden, which was far more advanced than Earth would know how to fix this, even as he said, in his usual, slightly slurred speech. "They said you were dead. Bad they." He glared at Ettiene, who rolled his eyes. "And no one will let me make big booms. Thena, I have to show you my new boom stuff."

  "Not now," Ettiene said, impatiently, which was exactly the wrong way to handle Fuse. As I saw Fuse's face crumple—even more—and look like he was going to burst into tears, I said, "Fuse, sweetie, just sit there and wait, okay? I need to talk to Ettiene, and then I'll be right along to see your new stuff."

  He looked like he'd protest, but then nodded, once, and went to sit with his back against the wall and his arms around his knees, looking expectantly at me. I looked up at Ettiene.

  Ettiene looked at Fuse.

  "Don't worry," I said. "Just talk."

  Ettiene sighed. He resumed pacing. "I don't know where to start," he said. "Everything went to hell after you disappeared."

  "Start with Max."

  "Ah, Max," he said. And as he said those words, someone else slid into the room. Ettiene turned, looking like he was ready to bite the intruder's head off. You see, when Ettiene gave orders around the lair they were obeyed and I would bet right now both the guard at the door and probably an additional guard set halfway up the hallway would have orders not to let anyone come in unless Ettiene called for him.

  Fuse had slipped by because frankly, no one was ever sure how to stop Fuse. If you put your hands on the wrong place on him, it was quite possible he would detonate. And this new arrival—well, it was quite possible he would detonate too but in a completely different way.

  Nat had always been tightly wrapped in a way. Max was the relaxed, happy-go-lucky one in the association, always ready to make a joke or diffuse a situation. Nat, perhaps because he was a brilliant man growing up in system where his family had climbed as far up as it could go and yet would always be someone else's employees, perpetually gave the impression of being a carefully contained package of frustration. Except when he was with Max, when he seemed to unwind and had even been known to laugh.

  Right now, it would be impossible to imagine him laughing.

  He'd always been tall and thin, but now he looked spare to the point that where his flesh showed—between his gloves and his leathers, at the wrists, and on his face—it seemed to be insufficient to cover his bones, giving him the angular look of a hurriedly drawn caricature.

  His eyebrows were low above his dark eyes and his lips were slammed shut in a thin line that admitted neither expression nor protest. I'd rather argue with a hurricane than with Nat right now.

  Apparently so would Ettiene. He looked at Nat, then wheeled around to face me again. Nat didn't greet me. He went to stand near where Fuse sat, leaning against the wall.

  "Right . . . Max . . ." Ettiene said. "He . . . his father went on a trip to Circum shortly after your father came back. Just after you disappeared. He . . . He borrowed your dad's ship. And . . . well . . . his dad had a stroke on the trip. And Max was acting weird when he got back, but we thought, you know, being Good Man suddenly. I mean, I remember when my dad had the accident, and I didn't exactly inherit, but I thought, you know . . ."

  I nodded.

  "But then he didn't . . . he didn't seem to become himself again. It could be shock . . ."

  Still leaning against the wall, Nat said a swear word. At least I was fairly sure it was a swear word, though he said it in ancient Spanish, in which I'm not exactly fluent. "It's not shock," he said. "It's not Max."

  "Oh, come, Nat," Ettiene said. "It is Max. I mean, we know it is Max. There is no way . . ."

  It was my turn to intervene. I shook my head. "No, Nat is right. It's not Max."

  "What do you mean?" Ettiene asked.

  "Just . . . it's not Max." I told him about my encounter with the faux Max. "Even before he missed his cues," I explained. "My skull was prickling. Something was wrong. He didn't move like Max, if that makes sense."

  "It doesn't," Ettiene said, and looked from me to Nat as though he thought we'd both gone over the exact same cliff together.

  "I can tell you exactly what he moves like," Nat said. "And talks like. And acts like. Max's Dad. Good old Good Man Keeva, may he rot in all hells. I tell you, Max is possessed."

  "Nat, that's insane," Ettiene said. "People don't get possessed. We've had centuries of science that . . ."

  "Don't care," Nat said. "Max is possessed. And I want to send his father's soul back to the hell he should be in. He doesn't remember . . . he doesn't remember anything. He calls me boy."

  My head had started to hurt. I'd forgotten what a handful the broomers were. And I was starting to wonder if I'd done the right thing in coming here. I needed to find out where Kit was kept, and if anyone was able to break into the systems where the Good Men kept their information, it would be Ettiene, right, since he was almost officially one of them? And if one needed shock troops to mess up a place, it should be easiest to take the broomers. But I'd forgotten why most of them were—most of them time—rebels without a clue.

  "I thought," I said, tentatively. "Perhaps, you know . . . Perhaps there's a way to rewrite your brain to make you exactly what your father wants you. Perhaps they were getting ready to do that to me when I escaped." I caught a surprised look from Nat and Ettiene, but I'd explain later. "And perhaps Max didn't."

  "There is no—" Ettiene started.

  "No," said a suddenly forceful Fuse. Still Fuse, but forceful. "No. It's not rewrite. It's replace. They open your head. And they put their brain in your head. And then off you go—your brain—off in the trash can."

  Forty Two

  We all turned to stare at Fuse. He looked as he always did, droopy mouth and half closed eye, but that eye and the other were full of intent thought and they reminded me of what Fuse had been like three years ago, before the bit of the spider fell on him.

  "You don't know what you're saying," Ettiene snapped. I don
't think he was so much denying the truth of what Fuse had said as wishing to make it go away as an unimaginable horror that shouldn't be visited upon the waking world. "You have no idea what you're talking about. They've tried brain transplants before. They don't work even between people with very close genetics. There's always different sites for nervous system attachments and capillaries. It's impossible. Trust me, I know something about the brain, because . . . because of my father."

  But Fuse just looked at him, and it was a most disturbing look to see in Fuse's gaze. It was like an adult looking at a child and pitying him. "Not if you are the same . . ." He seemed to fish in his damaged memories for a word that evaded him. "If you are made to be exactly like your father."

  "Stop," Nat said. "Clones are illegal."

  "So is putting your brain in your . . . your . . . your son's head," Fuse said. Spittle dropped from the corner of his damaged mouth, but it didn't seem to matter. "My father . . . I heard my father talking, and I was coming here, to . . . tell . . . And then I flew through the spider." He put his hand up to his head, and cupped his forehead in it. "Thena, my head hurts."

  All of a sudden, the light went from his eyes, and the child was back, petulant and annoyed. I went to him, and patted his head, not absolutely sure what I was doing.

  "Come and see my boom tools, Thena," he said, and pulled me by the hand towards his compartment, and I went because my head was full of thoughts that I didn't want in it. It was unthinkable. Unimaginable evil. Nasty, dark, turbulent. It was the stuff of nightmares.

  And yet I thought of Daddy Dearest in that operating room. Daddy Dearest ready for a major operation. But it was impossible. It had to be impossible. "But I'm a woman," I said. It made Fuse look at me with total incomprehension, and that's when I realized that Ettiene had followed us in, as had Nat.

  "I was waiting for you to figure that out," Ettiene said, sullenly.

  "But I can open my father's gen locks, the ones no one else seems able to open," I said. "And . . ." I shook my head. Something about the Mules having labored in vain to create a female of their kind. Something about Jarl having had plans, something about his having hoped to do it. What if he'd left plans behind? What if . . .

  I thought of Doctor Bartolomeu saying that he had known my ancestor and also that it would take a miracle for him to be my ancestor.

  "You're insane," Ettiene said. "It's impossible. With you it's impossible . . . with the rest of us . . ."

  "The rest of you all look like your fathers," Nat said sullenly. "I don't like admitting it, but all of you look like your fathers. All the way going back. And all Good Men have only one son. One son and heir. Until Fuse, and then they had a second, when he got hurt."

  Fuse giggled, a tuneless giggle. "Made him give up on my body, didn't I?"

  I felt a chill go up my spine, and made mechanical answers to Fuse's talk. Shaped charges. He was talking about making booms any shape he wanted, being able to cut a hole in any wall, any size and shape he wanted.

  Nat and Ettiene accompanied me out of the compartment when I left. Fuse stayed behind, playing with his toys. We all lived in fear that he would blow us all to kingdom come one of these days. "It wasn't Fuse who blew the other lair, was it?"

  Ettiene looked surprised. He shook his head. "No. Somehow he never does. Though the other day I had to cover up for him doing an underwater explosion off the coast, but not . . . Never in the lair."

  "So how did it happen?"

  "We were raided . . . shortly after . . . when Max . . . They wanted to arrest us. We escaped then burned it to destroy what we couldn't take" He frowned. "If it's not Max . . . I mean, I thought it was Max who had gone over to the other side, and denounced our Lair, but if not . . ."

  "Max had horrible memory," Nat said. "He had notes in gems. If his father found them . . . I mean." He seemed to realize he was talking about Max as being gone and of his father as being the current Faux Max and shut up.

  I remembered the gems in my pocket. What had father kept in his secret drawer? "What else happened, Ettiene? You said everything went wrong. What else went wrong?"

  He looked unfocused. Confused. As if his brain were continuing on a path he didn't like. "Good Lord, Thena, you disappeared, Max turned weird, our lair was blown up. What more do you need?"

  "Right," I said.

  "How did you get captured? What happened?"

  "I wasn't captured," I said. I made my way back to the place where I'd left the half repaired brooms. "I ran away. You see . . ." I told them the whole story, from waking up with a man in my room to being burned in the darkships. No. Not the whole story. I didn't think there was any reason to tell them what Doctor Bartolomeu had told me. No reason to reveal Kit's problems with his ex-wife's family, much less that Kit was a Mule. I needed help rescuing Kit, and I knew how long it had taken me to get over my fear of the Mules.

  It was amazing how your upbringing could make you afraid and disgusted of people that—to your knowledge—you'd never met. But never met, the Mules remained a myth, and as a myth they had the power to frighten. I didn't want to confuse things. There was no need.

  Unless we are all Mules. I shut the door on that thought. There were no female Mules. I heard Doctor Bartolomeu say it would take a miracle.

  But when I finished my story, they were both very quiet. "You really meant you are married," Ettiene said at last, sounding deflated.

  "What? Yes. I am married."

  "But to a bio? Thena!"

  "He's not bioed. He's elfed. It's just his eyes." And his ability to speak telepathically with me. That too was a complication he didn't need. "And his reflexes."

  "Yes, but—" Ettiene said. Then shrugged. He looked at me and seemed to read something in my eyes. "You love him, don't you?"

  "Yes," I said. "I think so. I never thought I would, you know? It's not something . . . I mean, I don't think I ever loved anyone before." None of us had. Our parents never took any care to instill any sort of love in us. Fear of their rule, sure, but love? Why bother? Why educate children whose brains . . . No.

  "Do you have any idea how to help me find the prison where Kit might be?" I asked. "That's all I want, to get my husband and get back to Eden."

  In retrospect, perhaps Ettiene should have been shocked, perhaps upset. He didn't look either. Instead he looked a little wishful. He frowned at me, as though thinking. "I can look at my father's papers, but I don't think . . . Well . . . His stuff that wasn't sealed is in the hands of his secretary and I don't think that would be. His stuff that is sealed . . . I can break into it, but I need more than this to go on, because I'll be violating all the rules of my custodianship set by the council of good men."

  I nodded. The Council of Good Men of course would not want Ettiene near his parents private papers. "If there is anything like prisons or . . . or anything . . ." I said. Like brains transplanted into children, for instance. "They would have been eliminated by one of the other Good Men, wouldn't they?" I seemed to remember vaguely my father and others spending a lot of time in Good Man Boulanger's home after the accident.

  Ettiene nodded. He still seemed to be talking out of deeper thoughts that he couldn't voice—perhaps that he couldn't bring into words even within his own head. "I think," he said, at last. "I'll stay here overnight. Perhaps we can come up with something . . . some plan."

  Some plan. Ah. Nat stayed and glowered while I worked on the brooms. He paced back and forth. After a while, he went and got his pack of cigarettes and started smoking. Smoking was somewhat of a fad among kids our class, though usually not children of Good Men. Our Fathers were all uniformly opposed to it and very vigilant.

  Of course they were. They wouldn't want anything to damage their future bodies.

  I didn't ask Nat to stop smoking. Natural forces can take up whatever bad habits they wish, after all. You look at them the wrong way and they raze your house and piss on your cow, something that it looked like Nat was fully capable of doing.

  I finishe
d all the brooms. And set them down side by side. I was tired but I didn't think I could sleep. "Nat, do you have a gem reader here?"

  "Can get you one," he said. "Where are you staying? Which compartment?"

  "No idea. Did they move my things when we escaped? Did anything of mine get brought over?"

  This caused him to smile. It wasn't a happy smile, but it was the best expression I'd seen out of him in a long time. "They brought your broom. I thought they were going to worship it. I think they got you a cubicle, you know, refusing to believe you were really dead."

  How touching, like a mythical chieftain in a primitive culture, which I guessed we were. It turned out I did have my broom but I didn't have a compartment. Instead, Abi and a couple of the younger ones set me up a cube, very quickly, with some of the cloth and a mattress they got heavens know where. One of the younger girls whose name I didn't remember went and got me another beer and another sandwich, and Nat lent me his gem reader, before adjourning to pace back and forth in the hallway, smoking.

  I wanted to ask him not to walk by Fuse's compartment, because I was fairly sure some of those fumes were explosive, but I couldn't, could I? He might think blowing himself and all of us to kingdom come was a lovely idea. Never give the suicidal people ideas was one of my mottos. Oh, all right, I'd never thought of it before, but it would be one of my mottos from now on.

  Feeling like a complete and utter failure—unable to figure out what was going on—where my husband was, what was going on, anything—I turned on the gem reader and popped the gem on.

  I didn't know what I expected. This being Father, it could be anything. Anything at all, including porno sensies of him and one of his women friends.

  It wasn't. The first thing that came up, flashing bright in the cube, were the letters The Athena Project.