The Messenger

by J. N. Chaney

  “You don’t suspect we’re grifters, then?”

  “Is that what you’d suspect if you were me?”

  She chuckled. “Absolutely.”

  “Well,” Dash said, “if you are, you’re pretty dedicated to your scams. You should be kinda broken up about losing your ship. But you aren’t. You seem a lot more relieved that you were able to get off it with your Lens thing. That tells me how important you believe this Lens to be.”

  “Maybe we stole that ship and just didn’t care about losing it.”

  “Are you trying to convince me you’re con artists? If so, it’s a lousy way to con someone.”

  “No. I’m just trying to put myself in your place.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I suspect that we’re going to get to Penumbra, find no ships willing, or able, or even suitable for our use, except this one,” Leira said.

  “If you plan to stick around, we’ll need a new contract.”

  “Spoken like a true courier. And that’s assuming, of course, you don’t mind having people around to risk, you know, getting close to them.”

  Dash glanced sidelong at Leira. Good couriers could play people—play them against one another, or even against themselves. He suspected Leira might be doing that now, hinting at things she thought might influence Dash—pleasurable things.

  And she was right. They would influence him. Absolutely they would.

  A burst of radio chatter interrupted them. It was Penumbra traffic control.

  Dash glanced at Leira, who nodded. “I’ll get out of your way,” she said. “Talk to you once we’re planetside.”

  Dash nodded and turned to the comms, ready to start inputting their insertion trajectory to the planet called Penumbra.

  Spice, reclamation projects, and whores. Those who knew Penumbra said these were the three fundamentals of the planet’s economy.

  And not necessarily in that order.

  Dash ambled out of the Slipwing’s assigned landing bay, a series of blast shields and exhaust deflectors intended to protect nearby ships from damage as others took off and landed. Leira and Viktor followed him. Leira insisted her head was clear and shrugged off Viktor’s efforts to help her along, an ongoing, bitchy chatter between the two of them that brought an amused smile to Dash’s face. It was like listening to some old, married couple, and that, right there, was the problem with having a partner. He liked going solo; if he felt like walking fast, or slow, or running, or any number of other things, he could do it without having to explain or account for it to someone else.

  Viktor gave Leira a last scowl, muttered something about her being too damned stubborn for her own good, then asked, “Where are you going first, Dash?”

  “Fuel. We’ve got enough to go absolutely nowhere. There’s a place…don’t know if you know it, it’s called Eternal Grind. The owner’s a friend of mine. She always gives me a good price on stuff.”

  They crossed a sprawling, empty plaza called the crash zone, because that’s exactly what it was, a broad expanse of nothing separating the Penumbra space port from the nearby town, intended to buffer the latter from mishaps at the former. It was psychological protection at best, of course. Not only could a ship crash on top of the town as easily as anywhere else, but a containment failure in a fusion generator or, much, much worse, an anti-deuterium cell, would vaporize everything within many kilometers anyway. Dash wasn’t sure how much the locals even dwelt on it. He sure didn’t, and he flew what amounted to a many-megaton bomb.

  Through the crash zone, they pushed into the warren of twisting streets, crooked alleys, drab buildings, and throngs of lifeforms that was called Penumbra City. It was midday, with the reddish sun hanging at the zenith, the sky pink around it fading toward purples near the horizon. It cast everything in a pink-brown light that rendered Penumbra City in a dreary sort of sepia tone. It made distinguishing individuals in the crowd a little harder than it would under a brighter, whiter sun, so Dash kept a sharp eye roving over the bustling mobs chattering and haggling around kiosks and wandering the streets. He hadn’t seen any ships he recognized on the Penumbra landing registry, but that didn’t mean there weren’t people here he didn’t particularly want to meet.

  As they worked their way around an outdoor bar sprawled around a building made of cargo containers and what looked like hull plating, Dash noticed Leira and Viktor were just as alert. Part of it was, of course, because she was a courier, too, and the job just tended to attract trouble. But part of it was probably because Viktor was carting around a piece of ancient alien tech that could blow up stars. Or, could supposedly blow up stars, but Dash still maintained a healthy degree of skepticism about that, no matter how genuinely his two unexpected passengers actually believed it.

  “Outta my way, worms!”

  Dash looked toward the harsh voice and saw a big, bulky creature looming nearby. It had eyestalks and many appendages, but it mostly looked like a massive worm itself, which made calling people in its way that kind of ironic. But Dash just smiled, stepped back, and gestured the creature past. It slithered by, leaving a trail of mucky slime on the road and a smell like a broken pressure-toilet.

  “I carried one of those on a long passage, once,” Leira said. “Made a good fare off it, but had to spend most of it getting that smelly slime cleaned out of my ship.”

  Dash chuckled. “I’ve only seen them a couple of times, myself. What are they called?”

  “Not sure what they call themselves, but I call them never-carry-one-again-oids.” She followed Dash and Viktor in stepping gingerly over the slime-trail. “Oh, and they’re assholes, too.”

  “That explains the smell, then,” Viktor said, his dry delivery making Dash’s chuckle become an actual laugh.

  A short distance along, and then they had to detour along a big grav-sled loaded with one of the massive reclamators being used to turn Penumbran desert into something that would grow, well, anything. Just past that stood the Eternal Grind.

  Dash led the way in, threading his way around stacks of boxes, containment tanks, unmarked gas cylinders, electronic gizmos, and what looked like enough reels of electro-optic fiber to stretch across the Galactic Arm. Near the back was a counter, behind which a tall, cadaverous woman with a suspicious scowl and a faint moustache tapped on a data slate. As they approached, she looked up from her work and her scowl became even more suspicious.

  “Pinetti!” Dash said, offering his most disarming grin, “It’s so good to see you!” He glanced at Leira and Viktor. “This is Pinetti, proprietor of the Eternal Grind and one of my oldest, dearest friends!”

  Pinetti plunked the data slate onto the counter. “Give me one reason I shouldn’t have your legs broken, Sawyer.”

  Dash shook his head. “Ah, Pinetti, always the joker.” He turned to his companions. “She and I are always kidding each other like this. I’ll buy you a drink, I’ll take you dancing, I’ll have your legs broken.”

  He turned his full weight of charm back on Pinetti, and her scowl somehow became even deeper.

  Viktor crossed his arms. “I think she really does want to break your legs, Dash.”

  “How many credits do you owe her?” Leira asked.

  Dash shrugged. “Not many.”

  “One thousand, three hundred and twenty-seven,” Pinetti said, her voice flat.

  “Okay, hang on,” Dash said. “It was less than eleven hundred.”

  “Interest.”

  “I don’t think we’ll be buying any fuel here,” Viktor muttered.

  Pinetti laughed at that, but there wasn’t a hint of humor in it.

  “Buying fuel…” Pinetti shook her head in disbelief. “You came here to buy fuel from me?”

  “Well,” Dash said, “you were our first choice. Figured that, you know, being such a good customer—”

  “You’re a terrible customer. And unless you have one thousand, four hundred and twenty credits to pay your debt first—”

  “Wait, that’s a different numbe
r than the first one you gave!”

  “Interest.”

  “Pinetti, look—”’

  Leira stepped forward and interrupted. “I have a little over nine hundred credits. How about you settle for that, plus enough fuel to let us translate to, I don’t know, say, Myrtle?” She glanced at Dash. “I can probably scrounge some more credits there, so we can—”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” Pinetti cut in, suddenly looking sly. To Leira, she said, “I’ll take your credits, and we’ll call Sawyer’s debt to me square. I’ll let you worry about breaking his legs to get it back.”

  Dash opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Pinetti turned to him. “I’ll also give you a full load of anti-deuterium.”

  Dash closed his mouth, narrowed his eyes, then said, “But…”

  Viktor shifted uncomfortably. “Here comes something unpleasant.”

  Pinetti glanced at him. “Oh, you have no idea.”

  “What do you want in exchange, Pinetti?” Dash said. “If it’s sexual favors, then, well, sure, I’m okay with that.”

  Pinetti’s scowl, which had changed from suspicious, to angry, and then to conniving, now became disgusted. “Oh, please. I’d rather take a Blob to bed.”

  “They’re definitely worth trying once,” Leira said, then looked around. “What? I was in flight school and doing some…experimenting.”

  “Anyway,” Pinetti said, her gaze lingering on Leira for a moment, before returning to Dash, “I have something else in mind.” She turned her head toward a narrow door behind the counter. “Conover?”

  A thump came from beyond the door. “What?”

  It was a young, surly, male voice. That was all Dash could tell. Still, it started an uneasy feeling in his gut. “Pinetti, what are you—”

  “Conover,” she said again, ignoring Dash and speaking louder. “Come out here!”

  After another thump and a few bangs, a chunky figure appeared in the doorway. He was human, male, and young indeed, Dash noted—late teens or early twenties, with fair freckled skin and red hair loose in wild curls. He wore functional clothes, synth-leathers over grey coveralls, and had his face shaped into a bored sneer. As he stepped up beside Pinetti, though, it was his eyes that caught Dash’s attention. They were a strikingly pale grey, but not a natural sort of grey. The color was too uniform, the light reflecting off them in an oddly crystalline sort of way.

  “What?” he snapped. “I’m busy.”

  Pinetti turned her scowl fully on him. “Doing what?”

  “Stuff.”

  She sighed and turned back to Dash. “This is my nephew, Conover. Conover hates it hear on Penumbra. Don’t you, Conover?”

  “It’s a boring, middle-of-nowhere shithole, so yeah. With a passion.”

  “And I hate having him here,” Pinetti went on. “So here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to give you a full load of fuel, and you’re going to use some of it to take him away from here.”

  “So, you want free passage for him?” That tense feeling in Dash’s stomach drained away. Passenger work could be annoying, but considering the circumstances, he couldn’t complain. “Not a problem. Where am I taking him?”

  “Like I said, away.”

  “Away to where?”

  “Just, away. Let’s call it a tour. You’re going to take him on a tour.”

  That tight, tense feeling barged its way back into Dash’s gut. “For how long?”

  “For however long it takes you to work off the cost of a full load of fuel, and you know what?” She looked back at Leira. “You can keep your credits. I’ll square Dash’s debt right now. And, at the usual rate for passenger carriage on the Needs Slate.” Pinetti picked up the data slate from the counter and tapped at it. “Yes, it looks to me like you’ll be touring Conover around for a long time.”

  Dash held up a hand. “Okay, wait a minute. You want me to carry this grumpy child…” He looked at Conover and said, “No offense,” then turned back to Pinetti. “…for…shit, that’s going to be months.”

  “If I could figure out a way to make it last even longer without it costing me anything,” Pinetti said, “I would.”

  “I don’t think I—”

  “It’s either that, or you pay me the one thousand, five hundred and seventy-five—”

  “Hey!” Dash protested, but shook his head as Pinetti opened her mouth. “Yeah, I know, interest.”

  “Anyway, it’s this, or you pay in full now. Or, of course, I could have your legs broken. Probably your arms, too, considering how much you’ve owed me, and for how long.”

  Dash looked at Leira and Viktor. Leira had a bemused look, while Viktor’s was noncommittal. He finally released a sigh.

  “So I agree to take him, and we’re totally squared up—and that includes interest—and I get a full load of anti-deuterium for the Slipwing.”

  Pinetti nodded. “That’s the deal.”

  Dash blew out a gusty sigh. “Fine.” He looked at Conover. “Can you do anything?”

  Conover looked back, blankly, then wiggled his ears. “I can do that.”

  “No, I mean—oh, never mind.”

  Someone let loose a soft, amused snort. Dash didn’t know if it was Pinetti, Leira, or Viktor. All he knew was that it wasn’t him.

  Dash assumed it would take a while for Conover to gather his things and get himself ready to leave for what could be months, at least, but all the young man did was shove a few things into a go-bag and shuffle around the counter, apparently ready to depart. Dash wondered just how Pinetti had ended up saddled with her sullen nephew, but decided not to pry. Her deal was, on the face of it, a really good one, which probably meant Conover was going to be a true pain in the ass. But it absolved Dash of a lot of debt, so there was that.

  As he and his—now—three companions left the Eternal Grind, Leira sidled up to him.

  “If you owed her so much money,” she said, her voice pitched low, “why did you come here? Is it because you owe everyone else who can vend fuel even more money? Because, if so, that’s a lot.”

  “It’s not quite that bad. I just thought I had, you know, a better relationship with Pinetti.”

  “You thought you could play her.”

  “Always worked before. She must be getting cynical in her old age.”

  Leira glanced at Conover, who ambled along without speaking. “I can’t help thinking she might have played you, Dash.”

  He shared her glance at the young man, then said, “Tell me about it.” His gaze went back to Leira. “By the way—a Blob? Really?”

  “Like I said, I was young. Don’t worry, I much prefer men.”

  “Do you now?”

  Leira just smiled.

  They turned onto the Street of Lost Skins, taking a more roundabout route back to the spaceport and the Slipwing. The street was so named, or so it was said, because an ancient forerunner race had used it for a dueling ground. Dash wasn’t sure where that story had come from; there were some bits of wall and a pointed arch that looked like ruins poking up along the street, but xeno-archaeology wasn’t exactly his strong suit. It made a good story, at least. As they passed a kiosk made of scrap tubing, polyfiber tarps, and another of the ubiquitous cargo containers, Conover suddenly spoke up.

  “I’m hungry.”

  Dash glanced at the kiosk. Steam wafted up from pots and bowls simmering away on induction heaters; as he watched, a short, squat woman served up stringy noodles from one into a bowl. His stomach growled at the sight, but he just glared at Conover.

  “So? Are you asking to be fed?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  Pinetti had been clear—passage for Conover included feeding him. Dash sighed and said, “Fine. We’ll grab something before we head back to the Slipwing. Pinetti’s fuel should’ve been delivered by then, anyway.”

  The noodles, it turned out, were good. The surprisingly broad array of spices and sauces to flavor them were even better. Dash actually took a moment to savor the experien
ce of eating; it was rare that he ever dined, as opposed to just refueling his body on the fly. This was somewhere between the two.

  “So, Conover,” Viktor said as they lounged around a table made from a cable-reel beneath a faded tarp, “what do you do?”

  Conover paused, a noodle hanging from his mouth. He slurped, sucking it past his lips. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, well, you must do something with your time. Do you study? Work?”

  “I just…” Conover stopped, then shrugged. “I just do stuff.”

  “Okay,” Leira said, “what sort of stuff?”

  He slurped noodles again. “I study stuff.”

  Leira exchanged an it shouldn’t be this hard look with Dash. “Okay, well, that’s interesting.”

  “Science stuff,” Conover said—the first unprompted statement he’d made. “I like—you know, science. Technology. Especially alien technology. I’d love to discover some.”

  Now Leira’s look turned uncomfortable. She glanced at Dash, then Viktor, said, “Ah,” and returned her attention to her own noodles.

  “Well, Conover,” Dash said, “that’s very interesting. But we don’t really do much with, well, alien tech. Leira and I are couriers. We run jobs, do deliveries.”

  “Carry passengers,” Viktor muttered.

  “And, yeah, we carry passengers. But it sounds like we’re going to have you around for a while, so anything you can do that might be helpful—”

  “If I’m a passenger, I don’t have to work, though, right?”

  “Well, technically, no, you don’t, but—”

  “Technically right is still right.”

  “Sure it is. But I think you’ll get pretty bored just hanging around on board the Slipwing while we work.”

  “I’ll find things to do.”

  “Okay,” Dash said. “Well, I can help with that. What sort of things do you think you’d like to do?”

  “Stuff.”

  Dash leaned back in his seat and gave Viktor and Leira an I give up look. As he did, Conover said, “I’ll tell you one thing I can’t do.”