Moonsteed

by Manda Benson

  Vladimir raised his gaze to her nervously. “In case I forget.”

  “Most of it’s just common sense.”

  He shrugged in a passive sort of way. Verity heard a tail swished and breath blown loudly through a horse’s nostrils. One of the animals toward the back of the stable crunched pellet food noisily, while two others groomed one another’s necks over the partition dividing their loose boxes. She listened to the sounds of the animals before continuing, keeping her voice quiet. “Horses have their own social hierarchy, but it’s not developed or maintained by aggression. These are bred to have such a temperament and reared in such a way that they readily accept humans as being their leaders and, as long as you listen to what they are telling you and give them consistent leadership, and don’t do anything threatening toward them, they won’t ever think to question that.”

  As she had been speaking, she had stood just outside the stallion’s box with her side to the door, glancing occasionally in the direction of the horse but not looking straight at him. As she had expected, he reached his nose over the door, one ear forward and the other twitching side-to-front, and blew air through his nostrils at her. She reached up and rubbed his long, bony face

  “See that big horse in the stall where you first come in? She’s the alpha mare. When you...” She broke off to stare at Vladimir’s collapsed posture. “Actually, just don’t look at her and keep out of her space. It’s only me, Sergeant Black and the Commodore who are supposed to handle her, anyway.”

  “Well, perhaps I should be handling her as well. It’s going to be no good if I have to handle the stallion because no one else wants to, and she comes into estrus tomorrow and I have to cover her with him.”

  Verity shook her head. “Mares don’t come into estrus unless specific day length conditions are met. The lights in here are set up so they don’t trigger that. It makes the horses more predictable and easier to handle.”

  Vladimir glanced at the horse, then at Verity. “But the base’s ANT has been operating the lights under a revised program, commencing just before the stallion’s arrival here. That should bring them into estrus soon.”

  “What? No one told me.”

  Vladimir frowned. “No one has to tell you. It’s on the ANT. Anyone can access it. I thought research personnel were supposed to keep themselves up-to-date on matters concerning their research and the facility.” Vladimir narrowed his eyes. “Unless you were too busy gallivanting about hunting spies.”

  Verity stared at him. How dare he speak to her like that! Well, she would show him in the centrifuge. She unlocked the stallion’s stall door. “Let’s sort this horse out, then.”

  When she reached up to sync her interface with him, she noticed he was not completely black like the other horses, but had a white star on his face, in the same position as his implant. She stroked his neck while she waited for him to adjust to interfacing with someone he’d not met before. Unlike the female horses, she picked up a prickling charge of arousal from him, and a feeling of constantly searching for something.

  When she stepped up to his left shoulder, his size overwhelmed her. He must have been more than nineteen hands, and the thick arch of his neck and glossy, well-muscled flanks made him so much more substantial than the mares. She gave him the thought-prompt to lift his foot, and he obeyed. His hoof in her hand felt more like one of the weights that went on the barbell in the centrifuge than something belonging to a living animal. She checked the three implants in the middle of the foot. Unlike the other horses at the facility, whose longer hair was trimmed short to make it easier to care for, the stallion had feathered feet and a full-length mane.

  “Before you shoe him, you need to use the file on his hoofs.” She held out her hand. “Give it here. Now watch.”

  Vladimir observed as she clamped the leg between her knees and drew the steel rasp across one side of the hoof, then the other. “See, evenly like that. A farrier comes to do them properly every few months. Now you take over.” She reached to her forehead and cut the connection.

  Vladimir tuned his interface to the horse. Verity watched as he sidled alongside, patting the stallion’s neck. He did the thought-prompt wrong, and the horse lifted his left foot. Stroking the animal’s shoulder, he tried again, getting it right this time. He cradled the hoof carefully in both hands, as though he feared the tiniest crudity in his handling might harm this huge beast.

  “Right, now put these shoes on him.” She handed them to him. “They’re for padding to stop him from hurting himself and damaging anything if he decides to have a panic in the centrifuge.”

  She watched him secure the shoes using the spanner. “I take it he’s not been broken in?”

  “No,” Vladimir replied. “He’s only been taught basic handling commands. He’s a stud horse.”

  “Usually we ride the horses in the centrifuge in order to exercise them most effectively. He needs to be broken in.”

  “There shouldn’t be a problem with it, in theory. I engineered him to be docile.”

  “I’ll get him measured for tack. For now, we’ll have to make do with just walking him. Put his head collar on.” Verity held it out. “No, not like that! It goes the other way around.”

  As Vladimir led the stallion out, his hand on the fastened head collar, the horse made a lunge for one of the mare’s stalls, pulling Vladimir after him. “Don’t let him do that.” Verity admonished. “Know in your mind that he’s not allowed to do stuff like that, and he’ll feel it and he won’t do it.”

  “Okay.” Vladimir’s jaw was set in concentration as he got the stallion back under control. Out in the corridor the horse did a big hop in the unfamiliar gravity then reared, pulling Vladimir off his feet. “Please, can you take over, at least for a little while until he gets used to being out?” His face was white, beads of sweat standing out around a brow lined with nervousness. In one way, Verity felt a perverse satisfaction in seeing him fail and back out. All theory and no practicality, this man. On the other hand, she was annoyed about having to stand over him and his horse like a nanny.

  “All right, disconnect yourself and get out of the way.”

  Verity re-synced herself to the horse, preparing for the strange feelings he stirred in her. She forced herself into horse mentality as she led him onward into the corridor. I’m the alpha mare, and I know where I’m going. You follow me, because you don’t know where you’re going, and without me you’ll be alone and scared with no friends. You’re a stallion, and your job’s to follow and protect us from other stallions and predators.

  “Don’t walk behind him,” she snapped at Vladimir. “Walk ahead of him, like he’d expect of someone worthy for him to follow!”

  Vladimir skirted the horse to walk ahead on the other side. Interfacing with the stallion made Verity feel strange, and she found herself staring at the shape of the man’s bottom inside his too-tight shorts.

  In the entrance to the centrifuge, the horse sniffed at the door. Verity waited patiently for him to examine it before stepping through and giving him the encouragement to follow her. She’d never heard of a horse that could fear being centrifuged before. She had no idea what was about to happen, or whether she’d be able to control him.

  “We need him to lie down, with his legs toward the wall.” Verity indicated to Vladimir, and he put his hands against the horse’s flank and turned his rump into position as Verity turned his head about. She gave the thought-prompt to lie. He put down his head, and his feet moved, but he remained standing. Verity closed her eyes and focused. She did not want Vladimir to see her lose control of an animal. She repeated the prompt, and this time the stallion dropped his head and gingerly put down on the knees of his forelegs. His hindquarters followed, and he settled on the floor with his legs tucked beneath him.

  “Okay,” she said in a low voice. “Just let him adjust. He’s got to be calm when we secure him.”

  They both stroked the horse until he lay his neck down and relaxed onto his side. His eye
remained turned toward them, the white showing. Verity fastened the thick securing belt around his girth. She used a foot thought-prompt to get him to give her his front hoof and let her extend his leg so it was straight and she could secure it in the strap. The second foot was attached to the same strap as the first on a short lead, and the same procedure was repeated on his hind feet.

  Verity took the chair beside the horse’s head. “You do the controls,” she told Vladimir. “Close the door and then start the centrifuge when you’re ready and in your seat.”

  She watched him carry out the procedure, checking he did everything in the right order. When the motor started, she reached over to the stallion and scratched behind his ears, concentrating on transmitting calm thoughts to him. As the sliding sensation on her back began, he struggled, his fettered hoofs banging weakly against the grip on the floor and his neck pulling back. Verity closed her eyes again, forcing herself to center on that feeling of calm. The wall slowly became the floor and the stallion’s hoofs touched down.

  After the centrifuge had become vertical, she undid her seatbelt. The horse was nervous about the fluctuations in gravity. He stood with his head hanging, watching his feet.

  “How did they take him on the ship?” She patted the horse’s neck.

  “He had to be sedated,” Vladimir explained. “They refused to have an animal like that on board otherwise.”

  “You sedated him? For a week or however long it took to get here from Torrmede? Don’t you think that’s inhumane? Wouldn’t it be better for him if you just brought semen samples from him?”

  “The project’s not just about getting horses pregnant on Callisto. It’s to make sure the horse as an animal is able to go through its ordinary breeding behavior in its entirety on Callisto. We need an actual stallion to prove that.”

  Verity glared at Vladimir and stroked the stallion with newfound respect. “We can set him loose now. I think he’s settled down. You take over here.”

  “I’m not sure,” he complained. “What if he panics?”

  Verity touched her implant to sever her connection. She glared fiercely at Vladimir. “Then learn to make him not panic!”

  Vladimir synced himself while she undid the securing straps. “We can’t ride him, so it’s not safe to try to make him go fast. We’ll just have to try and get him used to being walked round.” She set off walking, and Vladimir followed, leading the horse. They did one lap, so they were back at the seats and then Verity glanced back and saw the stallion lifting his tail. “Hey, watch what he’s doing!”

  Vladimir turned too late. A green-brown lump extruded itself from the horse and fell with a heavy thud to the floor. “Oh, great. Now we have to clean the centrifuge!”

  Vladimir began to laugh.

  “What could possibly be funny?” Verity frowned at him.

  “I don’t know,” he said, still laughing. “In Soviet Russia, centrifuge cleans you!”

  Feeling a sudden release of tension, Verity started to laugh as well. “In Meritocracy, horse shit on floor. In Soviet Russia, horse shit on you!”

  Two laps later, Vladimir stepped in the manure and trampled footprints of it along the length of the floor, but Verity only laughed at this as well. The horse had stopped being nervous, and he hadn’t kicked the centrifuge in. It felt as though the ordeal was over and she had achieved something by centrifuging a horse that could fear.

  They strapped the horse back to the wall and scraped the dung into a bag. Verity took control of him again as they turned off the motor, and together they led him out and back to the stables.

  “You take his shoes off, so I can check you remembered how to do it,” she told Vladimir.

  “You’re still interfaced to him.”

  “I’ll tell him when to pick his feet up.”

  As Vladimir leaned over to tend to the horse’s foot, his sweaty shirt rode up his back, revealing a gap of pale flesh between the hem and his belt. The stallion arched his neck to reach with his nose and began to lick the skin, smacking his lips loudly. The man started and stifled a yelp when the horse’s tongue touched him. “Are you making him do that?”

  “No!”

  “Why’s he doing it, then?”

  Verity shrugged. “Because you’ve been sweating, and there are salts on your skin and they taste nice to him.”

  He bent over again, suppressing laughter from the licking, and removed the shoe. Verity noticed again how gentle he was with the stallion’s feet. He put the shoes on the rack outside, and took off the head collar and hung it up.

  “Thank you for helping me,” he said, after closing the stall door. “I’m sorry to be such a pain in the arse, really.”

  “It’s all right,” she said. She gazed at him, taking in the disheveled hair, smeary spectacles, and the way his sweaty shirt stuck to the soft contours of his physique. Those shorts really were ludicrous. She could taste the musky, sweaty smell of him in her own mouth from when the stallion had licked him. “I’ll see you tomorrow, same time?”

  “Okay, then.”

  Verity went back to her quarters. She had a meeting in an hour’s time, and she still had her normal daily horse exercising duty to do. It was her turn to work the alpha horse today.

  In her quarters, she headed straight for the shower. It wasn’t until she had the hot water running over her that she remembered the conversation in the centrifuge. She quickly skimmed through the ANT’s log of yesterday’s events. There it was: Spy, identity pending, apprehend or terminate. Nature of warrant: pending.

  Whoever had filed the record must have filled it in wrong. She’d have to report that to the Commodore. Verity tried to send a request to him, but the ANT couldn’t locate him. He must be in the centrifuge, or outside the base beyond the ANT’s main beacon’s reach. He’d be going to the meeting, so perhaps if she went to his office she could catch him before that.

  She hurriedly finished rinsing and turned the shower off. After she got dressed, she headed to the Commodore’s office. There was no answer when she banged on the door. Footsteps hurried in the corridor, but when Verity went to see if that was him, it wasn’t. Lloyd smiled as he passed, equipment and a suitcase under his arms. “Hi, Verity.”

  “Have you seen Commodore Smith?”

  Lloyd raised his eyebrows. “Not today.”

  Another thought occurred to Verity. “Did you finish getting information out of that head?”

  “Oh, yes. Disposed of it, now. Didn’t suffer.”

  “Did you find out anything about the information he’d stolen?”

  “Yes, it’ll be going in my report to the relevant authorities. Don’t worry about it, you acted in accordance with the warrant.”

  “I’m not worrying about it. I wonder more about the nature of the information he tried to steal.”

  “Oh, well I obviously can’t divulge that to you, because the information is to do with something that’s exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.”

  “I know, but there seems to be an error in the ANT’s log. It should say which exemption clause it satisfies, but it’s just coming up with pending.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s an error. I’ll see if I can get ’round to fixing that later. It’s exempt under the unpublished original research clause.”

  “Was there anything...” Verity stared at him. “Was there anything to do with me in the spy’s mind? If there was, I’m entitled to know what it was under the act.”

  Lloyd stared, looking her up and down. Could he see what she thought? Inquisitors were the only people able to mind interface directly to other people. Ordinary, untrained people could detect the broadcasts people gave off when they felt strong emotions, and it was people who were particularly sensitive to these who were recommended for training as inquisitors. Perhaps Lloyd could sense Verity’s fears and hopes that she thought she kept well enough screened off from other people. He took a step closer to her. “No, there was nothing about you.” He continued in a low voice, “Something’s troubl
ing you. Why do you think you’d be involved in the information?”

  “Because John Aaron attacked me, and he’s still missing. I think it might have something to do with the spy.”

  Lloyd narrowed his eyes, tilting his head to one side. “I’ve always known there was something about you... Something you’re proud of, but at the same time, you fear others learning of it.”

  Verity stood, eyes locked with his, and neither spoke for a moment.

  Lloyd said, “I have to leave for the orbital in two days, and I have a lot of things to sort out, but I can spare a few moments to speak to you, if you feel you have something you’d like to get off your mind.”

  In the Inquisitor’s lab, Verity was relieved to see the bench where the head had stood had been cleared away. She took a seat by Lloyd’s desk while he made some tea.

  “Can I speak in confidence?” she said as he placed down a mug for her.

  “Certainly.” Lloyd gestured outward with his hands, palms up. “Keeping the Meritocracy’s secrets is my business. Anything you say to me won’t leave this room.”

  Verity paused, composing what she was going to say. “Private Aaron tried to kill me because he was an extremist belonging to some sort of cult.”

  Lloyd took a sip of tea and nodded.

  “He knew something else about me, something that to him made me blasphemous to his beliefs by the very act of my birth. Do you know about Pilgrennon’s experiments?”

  “Of course. Who doesn’t?”

  “Pilgrennon’s research is respected these days, but when he did it over a century ago it was illegal. In the earlier days of the Meritocracy, genetic modification of humans was only allowed to eliminate genetic disease. It was only twenty years ago there was a second referendum on it, that the Electorate voted to lift the ban, and allow genetic modification on humans, provided all genetic material used came from humans.”

  “Of course.”

  “That referendum was passed a year before I was born.”

  Lloyd raised his eyebrows. “Ah.”

  Verity inhaled deeply. “The company that created me was licensed to continue work with the genetics Pilgrennon had created. I’m made from Caleb’s sperm combined with an ova containing various different genes.” She paused. “Did you know any of this already?”