Beyond: Space Opera

by Milo James Fowler

The mech turned now and advanced on the Martians. Throw them out he instructed it over their tPath link. The mech, towering over the trouble-makers, paused for a moment, as if it savouring the task, then picked up all five of them in one claw. It marched towards the entrance. Customers knocked over their chairs to scramble out of its way. The five men kicked and punched uselessly. At the door the mech hurled them out onto the Strip, then stood barring the door in case they tried to get back in.

  "But, Dev!" one of them shouted from the floor. "We can't just leave him."

  "Don't worry," said Magnus, standing next to the mech. "When he wakes up we'll throw him out too."

  Magnus turned and began picking up chairs. Sometimes he wished his bar wasn't so retro. Such a predictable fucking space-dive. Who used glasses made of glass anymore? Still, the customers liked it.

  At least the Martians wouldn't be back. Plenty of other bars on the Strip. Or they would go and work out their anger in some rough house, beating the crap out of whatever virtual unfortunate they wanted to take it out on. Real unfortunate if they were rich enough. It didn't matter. They weren't his problem anymore.

  He returned the gun to its place behind the bar. He kept an assortment of weaponry there but usually the zapper was enough. When he looked up she was standing at the bar in front of him.

  "Hi, Mag."

  Up close, she looked good. In fact she looked fantastic. Time had been hard on him, he knew. Time and war. She stood tall and unblemished. Her eyes, her lips, the cut of her hair all finely-featured, all perfect. By contrast, he felt like he was lashed together from slabs of rough metal. Her smile cut right into him, effortlessly deeper and sharper than the Martian's knife.

  "Drink?" he asked.

  "I'll have the usual. You need one too?"

  He laughed.

  "That? Nothing we can't handle."

  "You and your mech. I've heard about the two of you. You get married out there or something?"

  He shrugged.

  "Been through a lot together."

  "How did you even manage to smuggle it home? Surely someone would have noticed a three-metre killing machine being taken?"

  "Tell me what it is you want, Tia."

  She climbed onto a stool.

  "I thought you were going to pour me a drink."

  He couldn't remember what her usual had been. Another detail he had lost. He poured her a shot of his finest Earth whisky, because it was the most expensive drink he sold. Poured himself one too. Tia raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

  "So?" he asked.

  "Oh, you know, never been to the infamous Möbius Strip before. And I thought I'd come and see if you were surviving."

  He snorted with amusement.

  "The war's been over four years. You only come now?"

  "You're the one who never came back to Earth, Magnus."

  They were arguing already. They always argued. He remembered that at least. Not the petty bickering of other couples, but great, raging battles over anything and everything. They shouted and swore and others looked on alarmed, thinking they were going to fight. But it was just what they did, a game they played. He also remembered, vividly, the passion of their reconciliations.

  He said nothing and waited.

  She set her drink down.

  "OK. It's just possible I might need your help. But I did want to see you again."

  The mech lumbered back to its position in the centre of the bar, reporting back over the tPath link that the Martians had left.

  "Sure," he said, shrugging. "What help do you need?"

  "Can we talk here?"

  "As safe here as anywhere on the Strip. No-one's going to care anyway. What is it?"

  "I need to arrange transportation for someone."

  "Who?"

  "Someone."

  "Someone dangerous?"

  "Someone in danger."

  "Same thing. And you thought I'd be able to arrange things?"

  "Oh come on, you must know everyone on this base. I'll bet you know a hundred ways to smuggle someone outsystem without the Solar System Police discovering."

  "Maybe so. None of them safe, though."

  "I can pay."

  "Don't need money, Tia. I've got this place."

  "I have plenty of friends, Mag. If you help me I can get you citizenship on Mars, Titan, anywhere you like."

  "Already got all the citizenship I need. Didn't you hear I was a war-hero? I like it here. Mars looks pretty this far away."

  "There must be … some way I can persuade you."

  He caught the briefest pause in her words. He grinned.

  "I don't need that either. People ask me every day whether they can pay for their drinks in kind. Women, men, humans, aliens and all points in between. Most of them younger than you too."

  She laughed.

  "You can talk. I thought time-dilation was supposed to make us all older?"

  "So they say."

  She sipped her drink and looked at him. Setting down her glass she shook her head.

  "What is it?" he asked.

  "This grizzled startrooper act of yours. The I-don't-need-any-other-fucker face you're putting on. It doesn't convince me you know. I knew the idealistic kid who cried in my arms the night before his first offworld mission, remember?"

  He scowled but said nothing. He recalled very little of that. He had a glimpse of that night in his mind, just a few frames: Tia turning towards him; the curve of her breasts; a flick of hair; the solemn look on her face. Music playing: some echoing piano chords. That's all he had, repeating over and over. He said nothing. What could he say? He sipped his own drink.

  "Look, I know I'm asking a lot," she said. "Here's my last shot. There is one thing I can offer in return for your help."

  "Doubt it."

  "I can give you revenge. A chance to get your own back on those responsible for what happened to you."

  "And how you going to do that? Got the Basilisk who did it hidden somewhere on the Strip?"

  "I mean it, Mag. I can help you. Let you move on from this limbo you're in."

  "I'm not in limbo."

  She raised an eyebrow in calculated surprise and looked around the bar, all the serious, heads-down drinkers.

  "You sure about that?"

  He watched as the zapped Martian struggled to wobbly legs and tottered out of the bar, not even looking back. As he left, three Solar System officers strode in. The drinkers made a show of paying them no attention. It wasn't unusual to see the Solar System police on the Strip. They had as much right to be there as anyone else. What they didn't have here were any special powers. That was the way it worked. They couldn't question, they couldn't punish. Or, if they tried, their suspect had just as much right to question and punish back.

  These were looking for someone, two of them picking their way between the tables while the third guarded the door. Most of their tech wouldn't function on the Strip so they were reduced to checking faces. Tia kept her head down, not looking at them. But then, so did just about everyone else. She was always one for getting mixed up in things, though. Causes. Politics. She had tried to drag him in too. He remembered that now, their arguments about him going off to the war. Misguided, that was about the politest word she'd used.

  He caught the gaze of the officer in charge. The look Magnus shot him was quite clear, without the need for any tPath link. Leave my customers alone. Drink or go. The officer glanced at the mech then nodded to his men to move out.

  Magnus sighed and looked back at Tia.

  "I'll do what I can for you," he said. "But I can't promise anything. And I will need to know who it is you're trying to smuggle out."

  She stayed silent for a few moments, calculating, her eyes narrowed.

  "I can arrange a meeting. But … it could be dangerous."

  "I can handle myself."

  "It wasn't you I was worried about."

  "It's someone I know?"

  "No, you've never met them. Even so, I need you to promise m
e you'll take things easy."

  "Always do these days."

  "OK," she said. "Let's walk."

  Magnus nodded to Donal, the ex-trooper he paid to staff the bar with him. A good man. Donal grinned at the sight of the two of them leaving together. As they walked towards the door, the mech stirred back into life and began to follow.

  "That thing coming with us?" she asked, the amused grin back on her face.

  "Looks like it."

  "It's still bonded to you I see."

  "Just tell me where we're going."

  "Port Twelve."

  The opposite side of the strip. Maybe a kilometre in either direction.

  "Let's walk clockwise."

  They could have taken the rail or cut the corner with the flipchute but he liked to walk the circuit at least once a day. He'd been cooped up in the bar since morning. They set off together, the mech stamping along behind them. Tia pulled the cowl of her cloak over her head to hide her features. Like a lot of people did on the Strip.

  It was crowded today. The Space Bar was in a prime position, half-way along the Twist, Marswards. Inhabitants of the station delighted in telling tourists it was the smart end of town. Usually they got the joke. Bars and brothels, casinos and rough houses lined the Strip on both sides. Occasionally there was a blank where a block was no longer habitable. The station was getting old, patched-up systems decaying. It was the downside of having no authority: no-one took responsibility for the infrastructure. They all paid money for essential repairs and the place limped along. Still, one day it would go dark for good.

  It had been built in aerostationary orbit just before the first wave of Martian colonization a century earlier. It was a base camp, a marshalling station, the first dazzling feat of engineering in the expansion. Now nearly thirty million people lived down on the planet and the Strip was left to its own devices, the only permanent space-platform in the solar system. It fell outside the jurisdiction of all the authorities. Mars was reluctant to police it. It was a law unto itself. A place where anything and everything was permitted. Mars liked it like that. They exported all their trouble up to the Strip and the good people on the planet could live out their lives in peace.

  "I saw what happened to you," she said. "I mean, it was on all the wires. You're lucky to be alive."

  "Yeah."

  "I kept in close touch while they fixed you up. You won't remember. But I transvisited every day for three months."

  "I didn't know."

  "When you started to come round I thought I'd leave you alone. Wait for you to come home."

  He glanced across at her.

  "You wanted me to come home? A hero of the Basilisk war?"

  "I know you thought fighting was the right thing to do."

  "But you didn't."

  She sighed and didn't speak for a moment.

  "You remember what you said to me when we parted?"

  He strode onwards, the crowd parting to let them and the mech through. Squads of Solar System officers prowled the Strip, always groups of three, their black body-armour glinting. More of them than usual, Magnus thought. He tried to ignore them.

  "Tia, I don't. I don't know what I said to you. I'm sorry."

  "Well. It doesn't matter now."

  At the port, a line of people waited for transportation off the Strip. He looked out at the constellation of ships and shuttles jockeying for position outside. There were no entrance controls on the Strip, no procedures. You came and you went. The only enforcement were the clusters of planetary-defence blasters around each port. If anyone came in too fast or did anything to endanger the station, the blasters blasted.

  "He's waiting out there," she said. "In one of the ships."

  He didn't like the sound of that. Too dangerous to bring onto the station.

  "And this person knows something about the Basilisk who got me?"

  She nodded.

  "I don't like it."

  "Suddenly you're afraid of space-travel?"

  "It's not that."

  "Look, you'll be back in an hour. You're in no danger. You think I'm going to kidnap you or something?"

  He shook his head. What the hell was he doing? Still, he trusted her. He didn't really know why, but deep-down he couldn't believe she meant him any harm.

  "The mech comes too," he said.

  "Oh, I wouldn't dream of separating you."

  She transmitted some instructions out to her ship and soon another shuttle joined the dance around the port. It crept forward on a direct trajectory, refusing to yield to several other small craft on divergent vectors. Finally it docked and Magnus, Tia and the mech embarked.

  The shuttle was smart, comfortable, expensive. Nothing like the military crafts he was used to. The couches had padding. Magnus and Tia reclined while she instructed the shuttle to return to her ship. The mech, too large for any of the couches, stood behind them, bracing itself against a bulkhead.

  Magnus looked back at the station. He realised he hadn't stepped off it since the day he arrived, nanobots still teeming away inside him, knitting his skull back together. The station looked beautiful from outside, the scorch marks and scratches invisible. It caught the limb of Mars beyond as he looked out, like a twist of ribbon tying up a gift.

  It was, he thought, good to be flying again.

  Soon he could make out her ship. Like the shuttle, it looked luxurious. Sleek lines and polished silver, microimpact-resistant. Tia was doing well for herself. It was just a subluminal cruiser, though. You'd die of old age if you tried to escape the system in it. For that you had to be gigarich. Or military.

  "Are you armed?" she asked. She sounded wary.

  "I run a bar on Möbius Strip. What do you think, Tia?"

  "I'd like you to leave your weapons on the shuttle."

  "Why?"

  "Please."

  He thought about it. Part of him wanted to refuse. Tell her to turn around and take him home. She intrigued him though. She had always intrigued him.

  "OK," he said. "But the mech comes."

  They had docked now, the seals on both sides spiralling open. Still they hadn't moved from their couches. She stared up at the machine, thinking, calculating.

  "You control it don't you?"

  "More or less. It's semiautonomous. Imprinted to act as I would without being instructed."

  "Very well," she said. "But please remember. You're both perfectly safe here, I guarantee."

  He nodded. But he instructed the mech to remain vigilant for threats. It was unnecessary but it made him feel a little better. He slipped out his blasters and touchzapper and laid them on his couch.

  The ship was just as he expected. Simulated gravity and everything. Clean. He began to think about buying a ship like this, drifting the solar system in it. It was an appealing idea. Perhaps he had been stuck in the Space Bar too long.

  They stopped at a doorway: probably, he calculated, the Con. Or whatever you called it on a civilian vessel.

  "Magnus, the person I need to get out of the system is in here."

  She looked very nervous.

  "OK," he said, his voice thick with sarcasm. "Let's go in and meet them then."

  Tia stepped towards the door to open it. Inside, waiting for them, was a Basilisk. The first he had seen since the day of the massacre four years earlier.

  Magnus grasped his blaster, the micro one camouflaged on his left forearm that he hadn't left behind. He pointed it at the alien.

  "No!" shouted Tia. The Basilisk held up its ten-fingered hands but didn't move, didn't attack or attempt to flee. Magnus thought about where to hit it, military training kicking in. This close a head-shot would be most effective. But in the confines of the ship, a blast to its shining, green body might be safer.

  He aimed for the creature's chest and fired.

  A blue stat field blossomed around the alien, shielding it from the blast. A ship this expensive. It was inevitable, really.

  The alien turned away from him, one hand waving
in a gesture that meant, Magnus knew, indifference or boredom. It was, he could see now, already badly injured. It moved on a wheeled carriage, its muscular legs useless. Perhaps it was a veteran too, injured in the war. Perhaps they had met before, in battle.

  "We need to be away from here," the alien said. "This wrecked soldier can't help us. There are three Solar System Police cruisers docked at Möbius and sooner or later they'll find us." The alien's voice was a thin, piping sound, always comical coming from such a powerful creature.

  Tia gave Magnus a look as deadly as a zapper shot. She walked towards the alien.

  "And I still think Magnus can help us. I explained about him. He is a survivor of the armistice massacre."

  "I am not going to help you!" shouted Magnus. Fury pumped through him. He thought about instructing the mech to attack the alien but knew its civilian protection rules would prevent it doing any real harm, even to a Basilisk.

  Tia turned towards him.

  "Tell me, Magnus, do you want to know what really happened to you that day?"

  "I know very well what happened to me, Tia."

  "I don't think you do."

  "Do you want to see for yourself? Do you?"

  Fingers trembling, he reached round the back of his head and pressed the shallow pits at the base of his neck in the sequence the medics had shown him. The back of his skull came away, swinging around on a hinge behind his left ear. He turned round to show them. He had never shown anyone else. The few remaining chunks of brain they had managed to salvage neatly enfolded in biostrip capsules. The chips filling in for all the lost tissue. The empty spaces in between.

  He locked his skull back into place and turned to look at them. He was breathing deeply. The skin on his scalp tingled as the joins fused back together.

  "They had to reconstruct me. My memories, my personality, everything. Interpolate was the word they used. All thanks to your friends here. Now you want me to help one of them?"

  Tia looked shocked, swallowing as if she couldn't get her voice to work. The Basilisk's head was lowered, an expression of regret.

  "Magnus, I'm sorry," said Tia. "I'm sorry you went through that. But you can't blame the Basilions. It wasn't them. Don't you see? You can't trust your memories of that day. The High Command invented the story they wanted everyone to hear and filled your brain with it."