Cory burst into playful spurts of motion, swapping ends without ever hitting the limit of the harness line. His excitement burst through her thoughts in firecracker sparks until she dropped a handful of food pellets at her feet, finishing their game while he satisfied himself with a search for crumbs.
She settled her thoughts, unclipping his line from the tracking ring to the collar ring to take him off-duty and emerging from handler mode long enough to wave to the concierge stationed across the corridor, a Tolian with feathers ruffled in amusement. The Hom bent his head to a well-dressed customer who pointed at Parker and Cory, querying with a colorful flare of humor in his cheek pouches.
Parker didn’t linger—she had raw steak to resupply. She waved at Fem Chirruk on her way past the delicacies vendor and called a greeting to Hom Shneeple as that worthy used all eight of his flexible upper limbs to rearrange his couture footwear. Delicate Fem Flir emerged from her vendor space of light scents and comforting oils to toss Cory a tiny treat from the box Parker had inspected and approved, skittering back inside with a giggle and susurrus of skirts and filmy veils.
Parker decided that she, too, could use a meal. Down one level and along the corridor to a well-placed but less pretentious location, and Cory’s mounting excitement fluttered through her own chest as they approached his—
Very. Favorite. Spot.
Huido’s Claws & Jaws.
Hom M’Tisri must have seen them coming. By the time Parker reached the entrance, the Vilix, beaming such as he could, had already extracted a treat for Cory. “Earth shrimp,” he said. “Very high food value for this canine.”
“I trust you,” Parker assured him as M’Tisri required Cory to sit and wave a paw for the treat. “Can I get my usual?”
“Deung-galbi,” M’Tisri said. They always kept some aside for her, and Parker had never understood why some people complained about stasis-stored food. It tasted just the same to her, and always hit her tongue with a familiar and welcome tang of home. “Huido will be right—ahh, here he is.”
As if anyone could miss the arrival of the Carasian, a massive being plated in gleaming black natural armor and festooned with implanted hooks and swinging cooking implements. How an individual so large could also be so quick . . .
Parker had never fathomed it. But Cory had his own opinion of Huido.
Adoration. Wild, exuberant, unadulterated adoration.
Thus it was that Parker always greeted Huido with fireworks in her head and Cory’s silly grin on her face. “Sorry,” she said, as Cory, unable to contain himself, erupted in a series of melodious hound barks, a bigger sound than one would ever expect from that wiry, muscled little body. “You know how he is.”
Huido only boomed a laugh, one claw-hand clacking in emphasis. “This one might even have the nose for grist!” He held out two sealed bags—one would be her dinner, and the other undoubtedly contained the scraps he would never admit he could have otherwise used.
Parker took the bags with a grateful duck of her head. She had no idea what grist was and had long decided not to ask. “He’s got a nose, all right. Doesn’t know when to quit.”
Huido’s upper carapace tipped so she could see the gleam of several eyes. “Best you both learn, little friends.” He sounded as somber as he ever could. “I heard about your encounter with the Scat.”
She couldn’t help an incredulous look. “Already?”
He gestured at Cory, who now stood with his front feet against Huido’s lower carapace, sniffing vigorously and sending bio’face goosebumps down Parker’s spine. “The Scat will not hesitate to acquire you both, if he sees your value.”
“Acquire?” Parker repeated.
Huido leaned forward as if imparting a confidence, a gesture completely offset by the boom of his voice. “Recruiters.” He straightened and added, in a paradoxically quieter tone, “The vest and badge will not save you. The lower levels are not for you or this Cory Dog.”
Recruiters. Predators of the vulnerable, those hard up on their luck and scraping by in the shadows. Predators of whoever they thought they could nab. Here, on Plexis?
“Now!” Huido said, booming again. “Eat your dinner! I must go share beer, for the Fox departs in station morning!”
Parker thanked him again, but he was already leaving, a clatter of cutlery moving nimbly through the restaurant interior. She numbly bid the Vilix good-bye and took Cory back to their diminutive quarters, feeding him in accordance with the treats he’d received that day and feeding herself with somewhat less care.
Recruiters. And Cory had followed his favorite scent right to them.
* * *
• • •
Cory spent the night in a tight little ball, sleeping as hard as he did everything else and offering Parker a mental respite. She sank into meditation to clear her mind of the reactions and sensations that weren’t hers, read a chapter in her book, and tried not to think about Randall’s behavior.
She wasn’t quite ready to reach out to the Project. Ultimately, she’d be dealing with the same people who failed to protect Cory the first time, and who had relocated him only because no other handler had been able to absorb his interface-pounding nature—no matter his quick accumulation of Hoveny finds. Brilliance with a price.
But Cory shouldn’t be the one paying that price. And Parker no longer had trust. So no, not quite yet.
But she slept restlessly, with the feel of the soft worn toy in her hand and the scent of it somehow in her nose.
In the morning she fed Cory his token breakfast and loaded her vest with meal pellets and a chunk of reconstituted ox horn, enduring the heavy-handed flavor of her own basic food bar. Cory performed his morning toilet in the special enclosure off her tiny bathroom and gave a mighty shake, his tiny sparks of pleasure bouncing through her thoughts as she fastened his vest and harness. He trotted close at heel on the way to the Hospitality offices and once there, leaped upon his personal little cot with the glee of knowing he was such a good boy!
Parker tossed him the horn chunk and waited for the fizzy popping sparks of delight to pass, full of relief that he wasn’t worried about the scolding from the day before, and that he hadn’t picked up on her own mood. Too busy in his own mind for now.
She gave him a subtle mental press—wait there until I return—and he wagged his tail twice, already chewing hard. She walked past the Found Things bin—not at all in its usual neat state—and knocked on the wall beside Randall’s open office. “Parker Eun Su,” she announced, which he never acknowledged but which she’d never stopped doing.
He looked up from the display at which he’d been frowning. “Why aren’t you out making deliveries?”
“Our shift starts in fifteen.” Parker stepped into the office, one ear on Cory’s vigorous chewing. “I came early so we could talk. No . . . that’s not quite right. So you could listen.”
His expression darkened. He was a coarse Human, with coarse features, and he’d never welcomed discussion. “I suppose you think you have something to say.”
“I do.” She kept her voice neutral and kept her mind that way, too. “Chief, Cory and I are Bio’face Project personnel contracted to work in your section.” She approached his desk, going so far as to prop her hands on it. “Cory is a brilliant, talented, sensitive being who’s astronomically improved the rate of returned items. He’s doing exactly what he’s trained to do, and it’s not our fault—or problem—if you don’t fully understand that process. Don’t ever think you can take out your day’s frustrations on him through me again. You took me by surprise yesterday, but it won’t happen again.”
Randall sat back in his chair, arms crossed over a stout chest, a clearing noise in his throat. He grunted, “You done?”
Parker straightened. “Yes. We’ll start work now.”
“You do that,” Randall said. “And best you not get into any trouble today.
Seems it’s not my problem if you can’t figure out how to do what you’re trained here in my station.” He flicked a dismissive hand at her.
Parker thought of Cory’s worth. She thought about the likelihood that she could leave the Project and still retain her implant, or that Cory Dog could retain his. She thought about how long it would take her to pay off the costs of taking Cory if she left.
Forever.
But she couldn’t trust the Project to protect him. She clearly couldn’t trust Randall to care about him at all. She was all Cory had—and she was on her own.
She swallowed that reality deep where Cory wouldn’t find it and went to pluck an item from the bin, reassured by the steady grind of canine teeth on horn.
Another person joined her at the bin; a familiar hand slipped in beside hers and deftly chose the next item in the queue, an appendage mitten of some sort. Office manager Mellilou whispered, “Parker, Cory let me kiss his head!” and held out the item. Then, in a normal and much more brusque tone, she added, “The toy is gone—a couple came in last night and claimed it. Cerviddes. They had grief bands—makes me wonder if there’s some story there.”
“Cerviddes?” Parker asked, accepting the mitten. Or whatever. “That’s their species, and not their name?”
“They don’t reveal their names to outsiders.” Mellilou quite matter-of-factly knew more about Trade Pact species than Parker thought she’d ever learn. “They have a species-long history of being hunted; they can be quite touchy. Hom or Fem Cervidde will do for any of them.”
“But—” Parker stopped her own thought. No good would come of protesting that Cory hadn’t found the child’s scent in the lounge. The toy was gone, and if it had gone to the wrong family, they apparently weren’t any the wiser. She retrieved the horn from Cory, offered him a drink, and then gathered the harness line. The mitten had been lost outside one of the upper levels’ most discreet pleasure businesses, and she thought if she was lucky she wouldn’t ever quite find out what it was for.
She was halfway there, taking and returning cheerful greetings on Cory’s behalf, when her thoughts exploded in joyful recognition, her vision completely obscured by internal fireworks, her fingers numbed from those same joyful fireworks fizzling along her skin.
Such purity of scent! Such intensity! Such unique persistence!
She had just enough presence of mind to duck as Cory lunged against the harness with every vibrating fiber of his being, jerking her abruptly into a tiny service run. She had no opportunity to clip the line to the harness working ring, had no idea where they were going—couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, found herself drowning in scent. Slow, slow! she flung at him, to no effect whatsoever. To no surprise, either—most of their Hoveny finds had been just this frenetic. She raised an arm to protect her face from what she couldn’t quite see, slipping and stumbling and waiting for that moment when she could regain just enough of herself to ease Cory back under control. They skidded around a corner and slid down a ramp, servo traction strips tearing her tough pants and skin alike.
The sting of it fed back to Cory, giving him just enough pause so Parker could wrest back control of her vision, or most of it.
Where are we?
Dim corridor, battered bulkheads, bare scratched floors.
Where—?
Cory’s distraction lasted only an instant, and then he leaped forward in a frenzied wag of tail, giving rare voice to his excitement in a flurry of melodious barks. Scent washed through Parker’s awareness, so strong, so clear.
A squeak of fear. Cory’s joyful baying bark. A FIND!
The bursting fireworks faded from her mind’s eye, leaving behind Cory’s rare but complete haze of success—gentle waves of personal endorphins that left him incoherent, if only ever after a Hoveny find until now. They made Parker prone to giggling but gave her room to think.
And allowed the visual acuity to see the child curled up against the bulkhead, shivering. A tiny thing of absurdly long limbs, huge doe eyes, and tightly flattened ears. Grimy white coloration lined her petite nose and the nostrils of her dark, dry nose pad flared in fear.
“Oh,” Parker said, stunned. “Oh, hey. It’s okay. I’m sorry. We won’t hurt you.”
“Hur me,” the child echoed in a nonsensical whisper, eyeing Cory through a slow blink.
Cervidde. What were the chances?
The toy. The Cervidde couple who had claimed it. The grief bands. The lack of the toy owner’s scent in the lounge . . . the presence in sly tiny spaces and battered station back alleys. Recruiter turf.
Parker crouched; she, too whispered. “How long have you been here?”
The child blinked again, tiny incisors appearing under a quivering upper lip of indecision. “Hep me?”
Parker had no indecision at all. “Yes,” she said, offering her hand. It didn’t matter whether she was right about the Cervidde couple or the slaver Scat—help she would. As a dry little hand slipped into hers, she shifted her attention to the corridor, glancing into its ill-lit spaces. Was that movement, there, to the left? A sound of movement? “Come, Fem Cervidde. Come quickly.” She withdrew the child from her hidey space and reached out to Cory in silence, tapping him for attention without any particular response. “This is Cory Dog. He helped me find you, and he won’t hurt you.”
“Frien,” said the Cervidde child, uncertainly.
“Definitely,” Parker asserted, prodding Cory again; he rose, staggering a little. “Come quickly now.”
A deliberate scrape of footwear against plated flooring, a shadow at the corner of Parker’s eye.
“Too late, s-ssssweetlings.” The Scat blocked the corridor in front of them. The other direction? His territory. “Too late for you, that is-ss. For me, quite delis-ssshously perfect. Ss-sshe is-ss mine, and now ss-sssso are you.”
The child froze, her ears so flat in her head fuzz as to be invisible. Parker shortened Cory’s line, looping it up in a deft one-handed maneuver. “She is no one’s, and neither am I.” The child’s hand tightened on hers. “Let us pass. Or did you forget what happened last time?”
“That was-ss lasst time,” the Scat observed, quite equitably. “You have come far. I think to find us-ss finissshed before your help arrives-ss.” His foot moved to the side in a sudden blur; he bent to it, and straightened with a small station vermin in hand, a thing with glowing red eyes that lasted only another startled squeak longer. The Scat’s long snout snapped closed, lifting as he swallowed. “Your small creature will be ssssso much more tender.”
Cory interrupted the moment with a small tenor growl, finally coming out of his haze. Dark canine alarm washed through Parker’s mind; she would be unable to manage clearly if he roused further. “Security, alert! Cory Parker!”
Cory’s vest lit the corridor, strobing white and yellow. The Scat hissed displeasure, stepping forward to shake out his loop weapon—but then stopping, glancing over his shoulder . . . taking a step back toward discretion and defeat.
Cory’s vest went dark.
The Scat laughed, an unpleasant coughing hiss. “Oh, but they have forssssaken you!”
Parker felt understanding hit her stomach with the impact of a physical blow. Randall had canceled the alarm! Without even knowing why she’d triggered it. He’d canceled it!
“Don’t get into any trouble today . . . it’s not my problem . . .”
They were alone. Again.
She had no need to signal the child, or even Cory. She turned and bolted, and they ran with her.
Into the dim spaces that belonged to the Scat.
His coughing laugh followed them, and so did he.
Cory’s fear splashed across Parker’s mind; she stumbled. The child tugged; Parker followed—stumbled again. Ran and ran and ran, barely seeing, following the child’s direction—aware that they’d turned left and left and left again, crawled through a smaller
junction, surely headed back toward brighter spaces—surely. She heard Cory yelp, felt the bright spike of his fear even as the harness line jerked her up short. She spun back to see the line caught in a damaged bulkhead and hit the emergency release, the child’s soft, fast panting in her ear.
The Scat’s loop weapon slithered out of the darkness to fall across Cory’s haunch; freed from the line, he spurted forward. Parker found herself urging him on. Run, Cory, run! Find home! Be safe!
Because the Scat was closing on them. No matter how hard they ran.
And did they run. Panting and scrabbling and tiring and terrified, and when the child tripped and nearly took Parker down, she swept the little Cervidde up and spurted awkwardly onward, the way bright and getting brighter—
Her foot yanked out from under her; the loop bit into her ankle. She would have fallen on the child had she not twisted wildly aside, all the while crying run, Cory, run because wouldn’t it be just like Cory to come dancing back in confusion.
Knobby fingers closed around her ankle, sharp nails digging into her skin. “The Csssservidd is-ss mine,” the Scat said, yanking her back. “Mine. I ssstole her long ago and I find her very, very ussseful. The very bes-sst thief and ssspy—you s-sshould not have tried to take her!”
“She is not yours!” Parker cried, kicking at him. Run, Cory, run! She could sense little of Cory through her terror, her own sensations finally overwhelming the ones he flung at her. “And Cory will never be yours—never!”
The child tried to scramble away and the Scat backhanded her against the corridor without taking his hard black gaze from Parker’s. “Then you are nothing but trouble, and will die!”
minemineminemine! Cory’s bay of fury echoed along the corridor—not distant as it should have been. Closing. Parker cried out in dismay as the Scat’s head lifted sharply—eagerly. But he recoiled just as quickly, his cough one of dismay, and Parker twisted in what remained of his grip to plant her elbows on the grimy floor and lift her head.
The Clan Chronicles--Tales from Plexis Page 5
