Snowburn

by E J Frost

  She meets my eyes. Hers dilate and I’ve

  got her number. It’s the danger she’s

  attracted to. She may like bald men. She may

  need a pilot. But the reason she picked me

  was because she can sense that I’m

  dangerous. She’s not the first, but she’s one

  of the few where the timing hasn’t been

  absolute shit. I shake my head at her. “You

  like livin’ dangerously, huh?”

  Her pink lower lip juts as her jaw firms.

  “Are you saying no? I thought we had a

  deal.”

  “I’m sayin’ you should run away while

  you can.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then you’d better be ready for whatever

  comes your way.”

  “I’ve been on my own since I was

  eleven. I can handle it.”

  I raise my eyebrow. “On your own with

  your brother.”

  “My younger brother,” she retorts. The

  sulky edge to her voice makes me smile. She

  doesn’t like being questioned.

  “Okay.” I’ll know soon enough if she’s

  talking shit. We’re only about ten minutes

  away from picking up little brother. I pull the

  ship’s master control pad out of a pocket in

  my fatigues, thumb up the security system and

  cycle the ramp. “C’mon, then.”

  She follows me. "Can I ride shotgun?”

  Shotgun’s not the only thing she’s going

  to be riding before the night’s through.

  Between the kissing, contemplating uses for

  her dreadlocks and the verbal sparring, I’m

  turned on again. We might be late to pick up

  little brother. “You know anything about

  ships?”

  “No,” she answers honestly. I like that.

  She’s got her moments of bravado – maybe

  even false bravado, we’ll have to see – but

  she doesn’t feel the need to lie just to seem

  tough.

  “Keep your hands to yourself until I show

  you what to touch.”

  She reaches out and runs her hand up my

  arm. Squeezes my biceps. “Is this okay?”

  I shake my head at her, but I’m grinning.

  My warning hasn’t knocked her back any.

  “Yeah, that’s okay.”

  “What about this?” She reaches around

  my neck. Goes up on her toes so she can

  plant an open-mouthed kiss on my lips.

  I hold her hips and kiss her back. We’re

  definitely going to be late to pick up little

  brother. I reach around to cup her ass,

  squeeze and lift her up onto my hips. Then I

  carry her up the ramp and into my ship,

  which makes her squeak in surprise. She

  holds on to my neck. Kicks her feet behind

  me. “God, you’re strong,” she says against

  my mouth.

  “You’re just noticin’?” I held her entire

  weight for the better part of a half an hour

  when we were fucking, and during that little

  cuddle afterwards. But maybe she was too

  preoccupied with what else I was doing to

  her to notice.

  “You might be stronger than Ape.”

  I get mistaken for one often enough, but I

  let that pass without comment. I palm open

  the airlock to the flight deck and drop her in

  the copilot’s chair. Deliberate for a moment.

  The chairs recline. Little monster’s already

  on low roar. But I really do want more than

  twenty minutes and if I take much longer than

  that, we’re not going to be in Kuus for

  midnight. Besides I got the promise of sixty

  minutes and a bed later. “Strap in.”

  She does, awkwardly. Definitely not

  familiar with ships. I speed through my pre-

  flight check and file a flight plan. Snow

  always files flight plans, even if they’re not

  always where I’m going.

  “Where’s your brother?”

  “Dock C-11.”

  I nod. C-11 is a cargo dock. Easy enough

  to get in and out of. The Spinning Marie has

  general clearance for most docks on

  Kuseros, but I’m in and out of the cargo

  docks so often, I don’t even bother

  requesting specific clearance before I strap

  in and lift off.

  I do a vertical lift off, since some ass-bag

  has parked a shiny new Starflare between the

  Marie and the runway I usually use. That the

  jump will spatter the Starflare with shit from

  the Marie’s engines is a nice bonus. Once

  we’re a safe distance above the port, I rotate

  the pods and point the Marie towards the

  distant lights of Hemos.

  It’s not even a five-minute flight from

  Nock to Hemos. Kez spends it in wide-eyed

  amazement, avidly watching everything from

  my small adjustments of the flight controls to

  the lights streaming by below us.

  “This your first flight?” I ask.

  “Yes,” she breathes. I smile at her

  honesty, and her unabashed wonder. I’m too

  jaded for that sense of wonder, but I still get

  the aftertaste of it every time I fly.

  I hone in on the flashing lights of

  Hemos’s spaceport and circle around to the

  cargo docks. C-11 is well marked, even

  though it’s an auxiliary dock, and I settle the

  ship onto the pad less than a minute later.

  “All clear,” I tell Kez as I unstrap from

  the pilot’s chair. She doesn’t move and I

  glance over to see if she’s stuck.

  “Wow,” she says. Her eyes are alight as

  she looks up at me. “Wow. That was . . .

  really . . . wow. Could we do it again? I

  mean, sometime. I’ll pay.”

  “You’re already paying for a flight to

  New Brunny.”

  She looks away and bright pink stains

  those pale cheeks. “Right. Yeah. I just

  wanted to see Nock and Hemos from the air

  again. It doesn’t matter.”

  “C’mere, kitten.” I help her unstrap and

  pull her to her feet. Brush a stray dreadlock

  out of her eyes and tuck it into the mass at the

  back of her head. The dreadlocks are soft

  and fuzzy, but they feel resilient. Definitely

  bed-tying material. “You liked that, huh?”

  She nods but doesn’t meet my eyes.

  “You liked it that much, I guess we can

  do it again.”

  She looks up and gives me that grin I felt

  earlier against my collar. Full of

  mischievous delight. “You said I was

  demanding.”

  “Don’t feel like you gotta live up to that.”

  “I won’t ask you for anything else.

  Promise.”

  “Mmm.” I’ll be interested to see how

  long she can keep that promise. I’m betting

  it’s not very long. “Let’s get your brother.”

  She nods and begins fiddling with the

  assortment of mirrors, beads and straps

  around her wrist. A couple of soft clicks and

  they’re aligned into a viewie. I lift an

  eyebrow. Portable personal communicators

  are unusual on Kuseros. The E.M
. wash off

  the binary star means that tech has to be

  heavily shielded. Not a problem inside a

  building or a ship like the Marie. But

  wrapping an eskey or vcom in six

  centimeters of metal foam? Might as well lug

  a terminal around on your back. Most people

  don’t bother. Nothing seems to interfere with

  this little piece of tech, though. Kez taps it

  on, runs her finger across the screen to the

  image of a young man with a blond crew cut.

  The blond’s face fills the screen and begins

  speaking.

  “You’re late.”

  “Hello to you, too. Did you get

  everything?”

  “Yeah.”

  She looks up at me. “Could you open the

  ramp?”

  I nod and tap a panel to open the ship.

  “Come on, Ape.”

  “Coming,” the blond says sourly. The

  screen goes dark, but the ship’s front viewer

  lights up. ‘Human entrance,’ the ship tells

  me. I reach around Kez and tap in an

  acknowledgement so the ship’s security

  systems don’t fire up. I flick the control for

  the ramp and close the Marie back up, then

  go to meet Kez’s brother.

  He’s broader than I am, which takes

  some doing. Shorter, though, almost exactly

  the same height as his sister. He takes up the

  Marie’s entire central corridor, he’s so

  wide. And I can see where he got his

  nickname. Where Kez is pale, Ape is ruddy.

  With the muscles, blond crew cut and red

  skin, he looks like an old Earth orangutan.

  He’s even got the monobrow.

  He’s dropped several bags in the

  corridor. He picks one up and tosses it to his

  sister. “Next time, hire yourself a Mule.”

  “Thanks,” she says, ignoring his hostility.

  She kneels to unfasten one bag, checks

  inside, then stands and looks at me. “Do you

  have a place I could change?”

  “Sure.” I cock a thumb at the door

  marked ‘Passenger Lounge.’ “’Fresher’s in

  there.”

  “Thanks.” She slings the bag over her

  shoulder and pushes past her brother to the

  door I’ve indicated, leaving me to return her

  brother’s glower.

  “Snow,” I say. I don’t offer him my hand.

  “I know who you are. She’s been talking

  about you for-fucking-ever.”

  Has she now? Interesting. For-fucking-

  ever sounds like longer than four days, even

  in monkey-time. She might need another

  spanking before we get to the truth of how

  long she’s been stalking me.

  For-fucking-ever is also strangely

  gratifying. I’m not really sure what I want

  from Kez other than my two and a half grand

  and another go-round in a bed, but I like that

  she wants me for more than my ship and lack

  of hair. “These need to be stowed.” I reach

  for one of the bags he’s tossed on the

  corridor floor.

  He snatches it out of my grasp. Hostile

  little chimp. “Just show me where.”

  I gesture him into the passenger lounge.

  The Marie’s a cargo ship, so the passenger

  amenities are basic. Just one room with the

  passenger flight-cradles and the adjoining

  ‘fresher. If Kez has decided to change in the

  lounge instead of the toilet, we’re going to

  walk in on her. But presumably her brother’s

  seen her naked before, and I’d like to see

  more than I have.

  Disappointingly, she’s picked the

  ‘fresher. I show Ape the lockers for

  passenger baggage and leave him to stow the

  bags, since the little fucker won’t let me

  touch them.

  Kez joins me on the flight deck a few

  minutes later. She’s changed. No artfully

  ripped fishnets and tight shorts now. She’s

  wearing loose black fatigues studded with

  pockets, a black tank with detached black

  knit sleeves that will keep her arms warm in

  the cool spring night but won’t inhibit her

  movement, and boots with metal showing at

  the worn toes. She’s got her game face on.

  Most of the rings are gone, just a couple

  through each ear and a cobalt one through her

  nose remain. Her expression is cool and

  distant. She’s still wearing the kohl around

  her eyes, though. With the fatigues, it looks

  like war paint.

  “Ready?” I ask her.

  The detached mask immediately drops

  and she climbs into the co-pilot’s chair

  eagerly. The fatigues aren’t as form fitting as

  the shorts, but her ass still does interesting

  things to them. I could get addicted to that

  ass. “Yes,” she says.

  “Strap in.” While she does, I flick on the

  ship’s intercom. “Baggage may shift during

  flight,” I say. “Strap in unless you want to

  wind up on the ceiling.”

  I don’t check the monitor to see if Ape’s

  secured. Serves the little fucker right if he

  ends up plastered to the deck when I take off.

  The flight to Kuus should take an hour. I

  open up the Marie’s big engines once we’re

  clear of the docks. The flight computer

  rapidly recalculates our landing for thirty-

  nine minutes. That’s more like it.

  The flight’s an easy one. A straight shot

  up the valley. I won’t need to do anything

  until we reach the mountains. I flip on the

  automatics so I can watch Kez.

  She’s looking out the viewer with the

  same wide-eyed wonder. I smile and she

  sees my expression reflected in the viewer.

  She turns to look at me. “You must think I’m

  a noob.”

  I shrug. “It’s a good view.”

  “It’s amazing.” She returns to it. I watch

  her for a few minutes, enjoying the delight

  that plays across her expressive face. It’s not

  a beautiful face in the classic sense. She

  doesn’t have Marin’s fine-boned features. Or

  even the sultry appeal of the hooker who

  finally broke Marin’s spell over the little

  monster. That woman had the fullest lips I’d

  ever seen, and her mouth was absolutely

  magical. Too bad she was so expensive. But

  I like Kez’s expressive face. Her eyes would

  be large even without the black goo. They

  hold all the wonder in the universe at the

  moment and light up her otherwise

  unremarkable features: longish nose

  accentuated by the dark blue ring through her

  septum, pale bow of a mouth, high

  cheekbones and narrow chin.

  I couldn’t see her expression when she

  came. I make a mental note to turn her over

  next time. See if any of that delighted wonder

  lights up her face. I’m betting it does.

  “Kez,” I say softly after letting her

  admire the view for a long while. “Want to

  tell me what we’re picking up?”

  “Glands,” s
he says, without tearing her

  eyes away from the viewer.

  “What kinda glands?”

  “Adrenal, I think.”

  “Fifty kilos is a lotta glands.”

  “Huh?” She glances at me. “Oh, they’re

  in some special kind of container. It’s

  keeping them viable or something. It’s

  heavy.”

  “What’re they for?” I can think of a

  couple of uses for adrenal glands: straight,

  gray and black-market.

  She shrugs. “None of my business. I’m

  paid to get them from Kuus to New Brunny

  by five.”

  I nod. I’m familiar with that sort of

  consignment. A to B with no questions asked.

  “Who’s paying?”

  Her eyes narrow. “Why do you care?”

  “I don’t.” I give her a lazy grin as I echo

  her words. “I just like to know who I’m

  dealing with.”

  She looks back out the viewer. “No one

  stupid enough to hire me directly.”

  “Boney Zed or the Chiangles?” I ask,

  naming two of the better-known fronts in

  Nock. Snow’s been hired by each of them at

  various times. I was curious enough after the

  first hire to trace it back to one of the

  Vespers’ drug lords, Kison Tyng. King of the

  Hex-trade on Kuseros. But I never did figure

  out why he had Boney hire the Spinning

  Marie for a fairly straight transport of

  industrial waste. Unless he was testing me.

  In which case, by poking around, I failed.

  Which is fine by me. I got no interest in

  becoming part of someone’s fiefdom. Too

  much potential for recognition.

  “Neither. A Jello Boy.”

  One of the Western Colony’s many gangs

  of toughs. They usually stick to Hemos.

  Which means either they left the res to hire

  Kez, or she left it to hire me. “They trade in

  organics?” They don’t that I’ve ever heard,

  but maybe they’re branching out.

  She snorts. “They’re not that organized.”

  No, I didn’t think so. “You’re not

  curious?”

  She turns to look at me. Big eyes

  narrowed. “Of course I am, but not

  terminally. Look, runs like this come along

  four or five times a year. The big fish hire

  me because I’m such a little fish that no one

  gives a shit what I do, and no one would give

  a shit if I disappeared. So I keep my

  questions to myself, do what I’m told and

  collect my credits. And I don’t get eaten, get

  it?”

  Yeah, I get it. She’s a smart girl: a

  pragmatist and an opportunist. Like me.

  “What I don’t get is why you came to me.”