There was a listener, close by and deadly, who did. Whether Raj Plexis had ordered him to assassinate the F’Feego and placate the crowd with its corpse, or to signal a larger, more terrible response, Morrab would act to end this. The question was how. An outsider, Morrab, with discretion.
Morgan counted on it. “We’ll unload the truffles on Plexis, Officer E’Teiso, after you have written down the name—or names—of those behind all this.” He held up a hand before the F’Feego could utter a word. “That’s not our business.” It was Morrab’s and, for an instant, he pitied those named—but only for an instant. Plexis survived because enlightened self-interest—call it common sense—set limits on greed. “After you do, you’ll go outside to announce the fee on our cargo was a clerical error and apologize for causing concern.”
“They’ll—shurr—kill me.”
Not so unaware, then. “We’ll be with you,” he promised.
We will? with some alarm.
We started it, he told her. Spreading the word, drawing in friend and foe alike, starting ripples flowing outward that had—oh, yes—finally caught the full attention of Raj Plexis.
Up to them to finish.
18
IN THE INTERESTS of not being assaulted with food and drink—and worse, their containers—Morgan instructed Officer E’Teiso to request a truce before we opened the door. Having been in the night zone during a food fight, I’d have requested full body armor. At least one of the bags Butter used for his dancers.
But no. A truce it was. Having come this far, I thought resignedly, it was either trust my Human knew this place and people, or ’port us away. The latter wasn’t an option. Besides, I knew that look.
Morgan was making his move.
Predictably, the F’Feego’s voice broadcast into the receiving area outside only increased the THUDS and SMACKS. Undeterred, my Human grinned and gave the now-trembling being a friendly clap on the shoulder. “My turn.”
He leaned into the crevice between stacks, home to a reasonably up-to-date com panel, and pressed the control. “Morgan here. Stand down and clear the entrance.” Straightening, he pulled out the portable com and gestured to the door. “Shall we?”
The abrupt silence wasn’t as reassuring as he might think, but I matched his smile. “Lead on, Captain.”
“First things first.” Morgan went around the nearest filing stack and shoved. Hard.
Plas tumbled down, E’Teiso crying out in protest, but my Human was only getting started. Seeing his plan—to make a barrier in front of the door—I helped, tossing E’Teiso’s files, and meal remains, on top. In short order we had a waist-high heap.
“Back here,” Morgan ordered. We stood behind the barrier, the unhappy F’Feego between us, facing the door. “Open it.”
With a stretch, E’Teiso was able to place its digits over the palm lock.
The door slid halfway open and stuck, something I noticed later, having ducked behind our flimsy shield to avoid the flood of consumables pouring through.
A move not entirely successful.
When the flow stopped, I stood, brushing futilely at goo, salad, bits of cooked bone, and not so cooked flesh. The beer made a sort of glue; the sombay, more a stain. Morgan and E’Teiso were coated, too, though somehow my Human had managed not to get any on his face or hair.
Mine shuddered itself clean, adding a shower of—yes, those were prawlies, not all dead—to my coveralls.
E’Teiso used its digits to dig out its eyes and mouth, spat, then blinked accusingly at me.
I shrugged. “Could have been worse.”
Interlude
WORSE IT MIGHT become, and quickly, but there wasn’t time for doubt. Morgan climbed over the barrier and sloshed through the mess, leading the way outside.
They’d listened, for a wonder. Enough to leave a semicircle of littered flooring open. Beyond was a ring of ominously quiet beings. Some he knew.
Most he didn’t—
“Let me THROUGH!” Serving staff or restaurant owner, they scattered as the giant Carasian, food bits hanging from his carapace and claws, lumbered forward at full speed.
“Maybe we should wait inside—” Sira said.
“It’s all right,” Morgan said, hoping it was. Sure enough, all at once, his friend started to slow.
Only to skid.
With the awe-inspiring inevitability of a star collapsing, Huido lost his footing and a significant mass of armored flesh—with weapons clipped to their rings—lifted into the air.
Only to twist, contort, and come down, nimble as an Anisoptera, on two balloon-feet.
A smattering of applause came from those who’d expected the outcome to be mashed Humans and F’Feego, plus a serious dent in the station bulkhead.
“BROTHER!” Huido bellowed, surging forward—with more care—great claws snapping with vicious intent. “You’ve brought my enemy!”
E’Teiso hid behind Sira.
Morgan held up his hand. “Peace, you big oaf. This fine official has come out to assure you it was all a mistake. Haven’t you, Officer E’Teiso?”
When the F’Feego didn’t move, Sira stepped to the side and pulled it forward, keeping her hands on its shoulders. “Go ahead,” she urged. “No one’s going to hurt you.”
A few growls from the crowd promised otherwise, but they’d wait on Huido. Something the wily Carasian knew full well. No accident, Morgan thought fondly, that almost crash. If there was anything Huido did exceptionally well, it was make an entrance.
“Here.” Morgan handed the F’Feego the portable comlink, willing it not to faint. To cooperate. “Please, officer. Answer their question. What about the truffles?”
Nothing could have looked less imposing than the food-covered F’Feego, but most in the crowd couldn’t see it anyway.
The voice, when it came, rang out sure and strong and likely familiar.
“I am—shurrr—Officer Esaliz E’Teiso, of the Department of Duties & Tariffs. A clerical error—” the “—shurr—” drowned out by a multi-organed roar, and several yipyips, of approval “—imposed a fee on this good captain’s cargo—”
A spontaneous chant of “Free the Truffles!” forced a pause.
Morgan raised his arm. Huido a claw. Silence spread from the front row back. When satisfied, the Human nodded at E’Teiso to continue.
“There is no—SHURRR—legal fee on imports to be consumed—SHURR—on this station.” The F’Feego raised its voice. “On my watch—SHURRR—there will NEVER BE!”
The receiving area exploded, this time with cheers.
Did you expect that? Sira sent.
From Officer Esaliz E’Teiso? I’ve learned never to be surprised.
Cautious, yes. Those named as behind the grab would be dealt with—possibly demoted to sanitation—possibly spaced. Not their problem. This newly bold F’Feego could be the innocent in all this, freed to say whatever it wished and taste popularity, however briefly.
Or it was nothing of the kind, Morgan thought darkly, using them—the truffles—to remove its superiors and advance itself.
Officer Esaliz E’Teiso would bear watching. But that was normal on Plexis.
Having achieved their goal—and aware they weren’t making any credits in the warehouse level—the crowd melted away. E’Teiso, after insisting on a reservation at the Claws & Jaws for truffles as soon as possible, retired to the shambles of its office.
“Well, that turned out—”
“Don’t say ‘well,’ brother, until we know what he’s upset about now,” rumbled Huido, eyestalks aimed at the approaching Inspector Wallace.
“We did what he wanted,” Sira protested.
The Human did appear agitated, walking so quickly the Whirtle constable somersaulted over a rim trying to keep up.
Morgan laughed. “I’d say it’s this,” with a sweep of
his arm to indicate the sea of wasted food and litter. In the distance, vermin were sniffing the edges.
Huido rattled in outrage. “He can’t blame us for the excesses of others! We did not throw consumables.”
“He can’t think we’ll—” Sira’s face as she surveyed the mess was a mix of dread and calculation. She’d developed a knack with the Fox’s sweeper, beyond doubt.
“Not our job,” the Human assured her. He’d worked sanitation. Plexis could pretend it relied on servos for its dirty, dangerous jobs, but there was an army of “invisible” beings in the tunnels and back corridors. Offer them overtime, out here in relatively open air?
According to his friend Minnic, they’d draw lots for the chance.
“C’mon, chit. We’ve perishable cargo to unload. My guess is, Wallace has heard more than enough about ‘truffles.’”
I do believe you’re right.
The Materials At Hand
by Jessica McAdams
MINNIC LOOKED UP and down the service corridor before he stuck his finger into the joint between the doorframe and the wall. He was allowed to be here, and as far as he knew, taste-testing the algae the cleaning servos were supposed to eliminate wasn’t illegal, but he had just finally earned enough to pay for his wife to join him, and he didn’t want to mess that up. Plexis was about to enter the Powti System, and that made tickets from the Powti’s refugee center cheap enough that Raphic could make the flight, and Minnic could pay the entrance fees when she arrived.
Risking any kind of trouble just wasn’t worth it, and you never knew what one sapient or another would find offensive.
Maybe this algae creeping around the doorframe was sacred to the people who were rich enough to own the establishment on the other side of the wall. They certainly spent enough money on keeping their rooms dripping with water vapor and oxygen: their doorframes grew enough algae and mold to have the servos overwhelmed and breaking down in the corridor practically every week. Minnic didn’t know if they used the service doors often enough that the stuff got out that way, or if the delicious-looking algae had actually defeated the structural integrity of the supposedly air-tight seals around the doors. If it was the latter, it was a safety hazard, but safety was not his assignment. Cleanliness was, and fixing the cleaning servos was all he ever wanted anyone to catch him doing.
But no one was there to catch him right now. The only thing moving was the servo he’d come to fix, and it only buzzed in its patient holding pattern, so Minnic ran his first finger down the joint and scooped up a lovely pile of the green goo. He popped it into his mouth and rolled it over his tongue. Mmm. Good enough to serve at the chief’s table, back when the Dineaps had a chief.
Looking around once more to make sure he was unobserved, Minnic scooped up a bit more of the algae, wiped it on the kerchief he kept in his uniform pocket, and folded the kerchief neatly around it. Popping it back into his pocket, he turned to the servo. Now that he had a sample he could cultivate in the little table-greenhouse back in his small rented room down in the sublevels, he was happy to repair the servo that would eliminate the rest of the algae from all the joints and corners and crevices in the corridor.
Well, eliminate it for another few days, anyway.
Minnic linked his fingers together, and gave himself a good, joint-crackling stretch, looping his joined hands over his head, all the way behind his back, and then bringing them to the front again. Ah, that felt good. He missed having trees to swing through. He bent over the servo, and began to pry out the excessive algae that had gummed up the works and mixed with the servo’s lubricant to make a kind of stiff paste. He’d probably also have to replace the filter or recalibrate the sensors, but even though he was on the pay scale as a janitorial technician, Minnic had found that most of his work was a matter of muscle, and not of mind.
“Here now, what’s this?” Minnic sat back on his heels, and stroked the fur on his cheek thoughtfully. There was more than algae and lubricant stuck in the servo. Something stiff was wedged in there, too, and that shouldn’t be, given that the cleaning servo was programmed to follow close on the heels of the waste canister. Someone had to have dropped it fairly recently.
Minnic tried pulling at it with his fingers, but it wouldn’t budge, so he took a pair of pliers out of his belt. The other members of the cleaning crew had laughed at him the first day he’d walked onto the job with his dad’s old hand tools clanking around his waist, but Minnic didn’t mind. Sometimes the best tools were the simplest ones. Back in the bad days on Dineaps, electric pulse attacks had knocked out all the power tools and motors, leaving many families stranded up in their eyries. But Minnic’s dad had been able to jury-rig a block and tackle system with the stuff on his tool belt—got their whole family out before the troops who’d been following the pulse attack had reached their part of the forest.
Got Raphic’s family out, too. Now, if only Minnic could do his dad one better, and get their families out of the refugee center. This job was a start.
Minnic grasped the stiff edge of whatever-it-was with the tips of the pliers and pulled, hard. It came out without ripping, which surprised him. Awfully tough stuff, this . . . well, whatever-it-was was still the best name Minnic had for it.
It was a small rectangle, dark blue and so matte that it seemed to swallow the light. Minnic turned it one way and then another, but could make nothing more of it, so he slipped it into one of his many pockets and went back to cleaning the algae out of the servo.
He was so intent on his work that he jumped when a voice behind him said, “All right, scum-sucker, give me that brick back, or you’ll regret it.”
Minnic swiveled on his knees and found himself looking down the wrong end of a blaster. He skittered back onto his heels and stood up, pressing himself against the wall.
The blaster was being held by a short female humanoid of a species Minnic didn’t recognize. She was also holding some kind of scanner, and it was beeping insistently at his right inside jacket pocket.
The humanoid scowled, hooked the scanner onto her belt, and stepped closer. “C’mon now, I haven’t got all day. Give it back, and I’ll let you go.”
Minnic could hear his heartbeat in his ears and feel it in his neck. Oddly, he could also feel it in the set of molars he’d been slowly filing down, in hopes that when Raphic rejoined him, he could soon have them decoratively capped to show that he had become a father. The current racing of his pulse made those teeth ache.
Minnic pulled out the dark blue rectangle—the “brick”?—and handed it to his attacker, who pocketed it herself.
“Okay,” said Minnic. “Didn’t know it was yours. Sorry about that.”
But the blaster stayed leveled at his head. “Sorry about this, too,” she said.
“Wait!” shrieked Minnic. “I did what you wanted. I’m not going to say anything to Security. I’m just a janitor. I don’t care what you’re smuggling.”
“‘Smuggling’?”
“Sure.” Minnic shrugged, and tried to make himself look nonthreatening. It was hard, given how he towered over the little humanoid. “I go everywhere on this station. I know stuff happens. I don’t care. I just want to do my job. You don’t need to worry about me.”
His attacker squinted up at him, her finger slightly relaxing away from the trigger. “Huh,” she said. “I’d never thought about that.” Her free hand rubbed the blue airtag on her cheek. “I guess that’s true, though . . . you can go anywhere on this station.”
* * *
• • •
The last time Minnic had worked the service corridors in the upper levels of Plexis, he had enjoyed it. The smells coming from the restaurants here were better, the things patrons discarded were more interesting, and there were so many decorative plants that no one noticed if someone like him occasionally snuck a leaf or two for a midday snack. In fact, last time he’d worked in the upper service cor
ridors, not only had he found a new and helpful tool for his belt, he’d also found a bottle of Omacron wine that was only half drunk. After his shift, he’d traded the bottle to a coworker in exchange for a beautifully-made and barely-used dress he knew Raphic would love.
On Plexis, the barter economy among the janitors who worked the corridors was second only to the barter economy among the grunts who worked at the recycling plant.
But now he walked the upper service corridors with a feeling of dread in his belly. Not only was his gut heavy with guilt, but his trousers were hanging heavy on his hips, weighed down as they were with more than a dozen of the smuggler’s “bricks.”
She’d explained that this was the actual price of his life: not merely giving her back her property after he’d found it stuck in the servo, no. No, that wasn’t enough. She insisted that he had to go to a trade mission on the upper level, pretend to work on the cleaning servo there, and at the same time drop a small mechanical bug behind a certain desk.
“I’ll get in trouble,” said Minnic. He could almost smell the musk of his wife’s neck fur. If he were arrested, who would be there to welcome her at the air lock? Who would help her and the rest of his family find jobs?
Plexis had seemed like such a safe haven, so full of possibilities, so full of nooks to hide in and vantage points to look out of.
Now it felt like just as much of a trap as the eyries back home under the eyes of the invading army. He was not going to do that again. He was not going to be trapped again. Not again . . .
“You won’t get in trouble. My friend just left us a message on the comp there, and I have to access it directly. No one’s going to care.”
“Then why don’t you do it?”
She shoved the blaster into his belly, all pretense at being reasonable gone. “Do it, or I shoot you.”
And then, as if afraid that threat wasn’t enough, she had loaded him down with both the brick he’d been carrying, and more like it. She zapped them all with her scanner, and sweetly informed him that he was now programmed to explode if he didn’t do exactly as she said.
The Clan Chronicles--Tales from Plexis Page 45
