Stoneskin

by K. B. Spangler

  “It’s starting to panic again,” she added.

  “Deep?” Tembi said. “Please let us talk. If we’re in danger, I promise Bayle will ask you to jump us.”

  Bayle’s eyes went wide.

  “What?” Tembi asked.

  “I’ve never jumped anyone besides myself,” Bayle said quietly. “And we’re on an FTL ship, so we’re not in normal spacetime. I don’t know if I can get us out of here.”

  Tembi closed her eyes. Trapped, she thought. At least until the ship drops into normal space, but then we’ll be in Sagittarius—

  “Have you told anyone else you can talk to the Deep, or can jump?” she asked Bayle.

  The other girl shook her head. “You’re still the only one who knows.”

  “All right. We’re going to pretend to be trapped on this ship. Learn everything we can about who took us, and why. Then, once we’ve docked, we’ll jump back to Lancaster.”

  Bayle started nodding. “We’ll need some kind of evidence,” she said. “Especially—”

  “—especially if there’s another Witch involved,” Tembi finished for her. “One who’s high enough at Lancaster to force the Deep to listen to them.”

  Bayle stared at the ceiling. “The Deep says it’ll jump us if we ask,” she said. “So whoever made it promise to ignore us didn’t think we’d wake up before we dropped out of FTL.”

  “Or doesn’t know you can talk to…Pepper.”

  “Pepper. Yes.” Bayle walked over to the door and tried the latch. It was manual, not digital, and it turned easily in her hand. “Our good friend Pepper.”

  “Pepper?” Tembi asked aloud. “Can you please take the nanopacks back? We need to hide the fact we’re Witches.”

  Bayle chuckled darkly as the nanopacks vanished. “None of this matters if this room is monitored.”

  “Whoever took us would have checked on us when we woke up,” Tembi replied.

  “I hope so. Let’s get out of here,” Bayle said. She opened one of the cabinets and took out a stack of folded Spacers’ uniforms. They sifted through the gear until they found items in their size, and put the rest back in the storage cabinets.

  “Pants,” Bayle grumbled as she shifted the strange clothing around her legs until the seams were in their proper places. “Shoes are bad enough, but pants!”

  They braided their hair into tight knots, and used spit and their robes to scrub the paint from their faces. Then, they stuffed their robes into an empty cabinet, and stared at each other.

  “We look like little kids playing Spacer dress-up,” Bayle said.

  Tembi shrugged. “Same tricks as when we’re thieving,” she said. “No eye contact, no whispering or soft talk, no quick movements, and always be looking at something in your hands.”

  “Right.” Bayle returned to one of the cabinets and took out two plass tablets. “Don’t power them on,” she warned. “They’re probably networked.”

  They counted to ten, opened the door, and stepped into the corridor.

  And realized they had no idea where to start.

  “If we go somewhere public, like a mess hall, somebody might recognize us,” Tembi said.

  “I don’t want to try doors at random,” Bayle replied. “Especially if this is a small ship. There could be… Wait, let me ask Pepper…”

  She paused, and then said, “Pepper says it can tell me if a room is occupied, and warn me if someone is coming towards us.”

  Tembi didn’t much like the sound of that—the Deep was terrible at following instructions more complicated than move this over there, let alone focusing on a single task for more than sixty seconds—but they weren’t in a position to be picky about their invisible friends. She nodded, and they moved down the corridor.

  Like the cabin, the hallway was metal and plass, with no loose objects except for three silver balls on strings hanging from the ceiling at every junction. They reminded Tembi of the dangling coffee mugs, but she still had no idea what purpose they served. The halls themselves had exposed metal beams lining the walls, and these had been carefully rounded on the protruding edge, with small cutouts every dozen centimeters that reminded her of the handles on coffee mugs.

  There was no one around them. Tembi had no reason to imagine the ship as small, but that was the impression she got from the size of the corridors and the lack of other people.

  “Here,” Bayle said, and moved to a door on their right. The latch was locked, but the Deep popped it open for them, and they ducked inside. It was another set of sleeping quarters, with the same layout as the first cabin, except this one had all the signs of residents. They searched the room, looking for anything of use, but quickly gave up and moved on.

  They repeated this process a dozen times. All they found were personal cabins.

  “We’re getting nowhere,” Bayle muttered as they searched the thirteenth cabin.

  Tembi agreed. “We’ve got to find an office or something. Maybe if we leave the crew section?”

  “There’ll be more people around,” Bayle said. “Or we can try to find a place to hide until the work shift ends.”

  Since they didn’t know if the crew followed a day-night schedule or kept the same number of personnel on during all shifts, they decided against hiding. Instead, they found a lift and moved up a level.

  They saw their first crewmember as they exited the lift, a broad-shouldered woman with tightly braided hair. She nodded to them and stepped on the lift without a word.

  “Well, that’s a good sign,” Bayle said.

  The ship gave a shuddering lurch, and a siren began screaming across the ship’s sound system.

  “Oh gods, please let that not be for us,” Tembi breathed.

  “The—Pepper says the first room is unlocked and unoccupied,” Bayle said, and turned towards the door.

  More people in Spacers’ uniforms were starting to appear, most of them running. By the time Tembi and Bayle had reached the door, a dozen people had passed them.

  And ignored them.

  “This isn’t good,” Tembi said, as Bayle opened the door.

  “Whatever’s happening, they’re not looking for two women,” Bayle said, as they raced into the room and shut the door behind them. It was quieter in here; the alarms were in the hall outside.

  “That’s what I meant,” Tembi said, as she waved her arms and tried to get the room lights to activate. The room was completely dark except for the red emergency light flashing overhead. “If they’re not searching for us, something else is happening.”

  Bayle swore.

  “Lights!” Tembi said. “Activate? Illumination?”

  There was a sliding noise as Bayle groped around on the wall by the door. A click, and the lights turned on.

  “That’s quaint,” Bayle muttered.

  “Nothing is automated,” Tembi said, as she turned to take in the room. It was messier than the crew quarters, with paper taped to the walls, and objects such as writing tools scattered across the tables and chairs. “Have you noticed?”

  “Base model,” Bayle said. “Whoever owns this ship didn’t want to spend money on upgrades.”

  Tembi tried to open one of the cabinets. These, at least, were controlled by digital access; the door was locked. “Hey, Pepper?” she asked. “Would you mind?”

  The cabinet slid open. There were paper files inside, dozens of them.

  “Here we go,” Tembi said.

  Bayle joined her in sifting through the documents. Their training at Lancaster had made them experts in skimming the contents of shipping documents and bills of lading, and they raced through the files. A picture of the ship was coming together, and it wasn’t pretty.

  “This is a Sabenta ship,” Bayle whispered. “That’s why it’s using an FTL drive. The Deep won’t touch it.”

  They looked up at the emergency lights as the ship shuddered again.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to risk jumping out of here?” Tembi asked her friend.

  Bayle’s eye
s were redder than normal, but she took a deep breath. “Not unless we have no choice.”

  Tembi nodded, and moved to another cabinet. This one contained personnel files: the crew of the Sabenta ship was small but diverse, numbering in the low hundreds. They weren’t soldiers. Their files said they were diplomats, but…

  She kept turning pages, searching for more information. There seemed to be a lot of blank spaces in these records.

  “Something doesn’t add up,” she said to Bayle. “It says this is a diplomatic ship.”

  “Nope,” Bayle said, without bothering to look up. “I’m from a family of diplomats. They always splurge on the upgrades, even if they have no resources for anything else. Showing off your credit convinces other people to give you more credit.”

  “But if it’s not military, and it’s not diplomatic…”

  “Espionage,” said a familiar voice behind them, as the sounds of the alarms grew louder.

  Tembi and Bayle turned.

  There, in the open doorway, stood Rabbit. He cocked his head, and asked, “Now, why are you aboard my ship?”

  _________________________________

  help me

  help you

  LISTEN

  stonegirl

  LISTEN

  Excerpt from “Notes from the Deep,” 16 July 3616 CE

  _________________________________

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Bayle stood and crossed the distance to him in three steps. They stared at each other for the space of a dozen heartbeats.

  Then she punched him straight in the mouth.

  “Oh!” Tembi gasped.

  “Bayle!” Rabbit pressed his hand against his mouth and checked it for blood. His hand was wet and red. Bayle—the same gentle Bayle who couldn’t last through a month of martial arts—had nearly knocked out one of his teeth.

  “Why are we aboard your ship?” Bayle asked, and punched him again, this time in the stomach. “Maybe you should tell us why we’re aboard your ship!”

  “Crazy Witch!” Rabbit caught Bayle’s next punch and sent her rolling across the room. “Don’t make me stuff you in lockup!”

  Bayle was up again; this time, she grabbed Rabbit by the throat. The plass-hard digital displays of her manicure dug into the delicate tissues of his gills.

  He froze. “Bayle,” he said, as calm as still water. “I know you’re not an assassin. Why are you here?”

  “We’re here,” she hissed, “because we woke up here! We were in stasis—Tembi was in normal stasis with an open head wound! So start talking, or I start squeezing.”

  The barrel of a popstick appeared over Rabbit’s shoulder, pointed straight at Bayle’s head.

  Tembi had had enough. “Deep!” she shouted.

  An unseen force grabbed Rabbit and Kalais—because of course the person holding the popstick had to be Kalais—and slammed them both into the ceiling at near-bonebreaking speeds. The Deep held the men against the ceiling, freezing them in place.

  Tembi slammed the door shut and snatched the popstick off the floor. It was so tempting to slam its round end against Kalais and unload the full charge into his—

  “Talk,” she said, as Bayle came over to stand next to her, arms crossed and furious.

  “Can we do this later?” Rabbit asked. “We’re about to be—”

  The emergency light stopped flashing. In the hallway, the alarms stopped.

  “—never mind,” he said. “Can you let us down?”

  “Deep? Put a little more pressure on, please.” Bayle said.

  The men grunted in discomfort.

  “Why did you kidnap us?” Tembi asked, turning the popstick over in her hand. She had never held one before. The spiraling curves cut into its metal shaft made it feel almost alive, as if it was begging to be used.

  “Tembi?” Kalais’s voice was soft and measured. “We didn’t know you were here. We didn’t kidnap you.”

  “Like we should trust anything that comes out of your mouths,” Bayle said. “You two just happened to bump into us, and you just happened to be…be…compatible! And you just happened to also be a pair of spies!”

  Tembi closed her eyes against the reality that the chain of coincidences over the past few months hadn’t been coincidences at all.

  “If it helps, Kal’s a spy in training,” Rabbit said, using his old grin.

  “Give me the popstick,” Bayle ordered, holding out her hand.

  Tembi ignored her. “If we do believe you,” she said to the men, “then why are we here? Somebody had to put us on your ship.”

  “Seems to me we’re in a stalemate,” Rabbit said. “You claim we kidnapped you, which I know isn’t true, and you say you didn’t jump aboard my ship, which I don’t believe is true.”

  “You know neither of us can jump yet!” Tembi tried.

  Rabbit shifted his attention to her. “Kid? I’m a spy, remember? Bayle’s been jumping for the better part of a year.”

  A year… They’ve been watching us for a year! She wanted to cry.

  “Then you know I’ve never jumped with another person,” Bayle said, her voice like sharpened steel. “And if you know me at all, you’d know I’d never risk trying that for the first time aboard a ship traveling at FTL.”

  Rabbit and Kalais glanced at each other, then back to Bayle.

  Rabbit nodded, very slowly. “Good point,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean you didn’t get help from a more experienced Witch.”

  “Scheisse,” Bayle muttered under her breath, and Tembi lowered the popstick.

  Rabbit noticed. “Well, well, well,” he said. “The Deep says there’s another Witch involved, doesn’t it?”

  “Deep?” Tembi said aloud. “If they make any move to harm us, can you please slam them into the ceiling again?”

  Bayle tilted her head as if listening, and then nodded.

  “Thank you, Deep,” Tembi said. “You can let them down now.”

  The Deep did, and it wasn’t subtle about the process. The men came crashing to the floor. They picked themselves up, keeping a wary eye on Tembi and her popstick.

  Tembi and Bayle put some distance between themselves and their exes, and watched as Rabbit settled himself on top of one of the metal tables. Kalais stood behind him, his body tensed like a coiled spring.

  “Talk,” Tembi said.

  “It’s an easy enough story,” Rabbit said. “You already know it. We’re working on behalf of the Sabenta, trying to enlist Lancaster’s help in ending the war.”

  “Why us?” Bayle said.

  “You’re nobility, and Tembi’s the Deep’s favorite.” Kalais was staring at Tembi, his dark eyes fixed on her face.

  “You’re nobility?” Tembi asked Bayle.

  “Later,” Bayle said quietly. Then, to Rabbit: “You gave up on us pretty easily.”

  He shrugged. “You weren’t our principal objective,” he replied. “You were a cover story and a secondary target. The first rule of espionage is never run a single job when you can run two.”

  “What was your principle objective?” Tembi asked.

  Rabbit grinned at her but didn’t answer.

  “Fine,” she said. “But you better start thinking about whether any senior Witches at Lancaster knew about your stupid secondary project, because if they do, it’ll be easy for them to claim you planned to abduct us all along.”

  The speed at which the grin vanished from Rabbit’s face was what finally convinced Tembi that he was telling the truth. “Oh gods,” he said quietly. “It’s a set-up.”

  “Why was the alarm going off?” Bayle asked.

  “C’mon,” Rabbit said. “We’ve got to get to the Deck.” He hauled the heavy door to the records room open and began running.

  “Why was the alarm going off?” Bayle shouted after him.

  “We were under attack,” Kalais replied. “We either escaped or they retreated.”

  “Who was attacking you?”

  Neither of the men answered Bayle.


  Without a better option, Tembi and Bayle followed them deeper into the ship. They were running, but everyone they passed seemed to be running too, or was busy in a task and didn’t have the mental energy required to notice the four of them as they sprinted past.

  The deeper they went, the more the ship felt…finished. This part of the ship fit into Tembi’s expectations about star cruisers. There were ’bots, automation, all aspects brushed and polished to a gleaming shine. Several sections of the walls were also painted in peaceful patterns that Tembi recognized as typical of the Sabenta.

  “This is what a diplomat’s ship should look like,” Bayle said, casting a practiced eye across the corridor as they ran. “I suppose this is the section they show off when they’re trying to impress donors.”

  Oh, right. That. Tembi leaned over and asked, as quietly as she could without breaking stride: “You’re a princess?”

  “What? No, of course not!” Bayle said, the traces of a blush starting across her cheeks. “I’m just a lady.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She gave a very unladylike snort. “It means my ancestors designed a game for the video channels about merpeople, got mind-bogglingly rich, and went off to live out their fantasies on their own planet.”

  “Um…” Tembi gave her friend a spectacular side-eyed glare. “That’s not royalty.”

  Bayle shrugged as they took a sharp left turn down another corridor. “When you buy your own planet, you become your own royalty.” She glanced over at Tembi and added, “It could be worse. Steven’s ancestors were survivalists obsessed with dinosaurs.”

  Tembi shuddered, and touched the tip of an ear.

  Three more turns, and they had caught up with Rabbit and Kalais. The men were standing with their heads together outside of a large plass door painted in more of those peaceful Sabenta designs, talking in quiet voices.

  Rabbit glared at the two Witches as they pulled up to a stop. “His name is General Eichin, he doesn’t have the time to deal with you, and if the alarms start again, you’ll come with us, no argument. Got it?”

  Tembi opened her mouth with a viper’s swiftness, but Bayle placed a hand on her shoulder. “Got it.”