by T. J. Berry
Jim was an old fella, but even weak people became strong when they had nothing to lose. He doubted Jim could actually kill him, but he didn’t doubt that Jim desperately wanted to.
“I’m sorry, Jim. I can explain what happened between us if you like.”
Jim spat. The glob of moisture floated across the cockpit. Gary dodged it and it landed on the instrument panel, clinging to one of the glass tubes, in its own way also indicating the overall state of wellbeing on the ship.
Gary headed for the cockpit door. He wasn’t needed until they jumped to FTL anyway. Better to stay out of Jim’s way as much as possible.
“Fucking horsefucker,” Jim called after him.
In the hallway, Boges poked her head out of a dwarf door.
“If you get a moment, Captain, Miss Tang is rearranging our handiwork in the garden. If you would be so kind as to have a word with her.”
“Of course, Boges,” he replied. The dwarves had effortlessly adjusted their soil-laying to the zero G environment. They had secured a finely woven mesh over the dirt to keep it from floating away, but allowing plants to grow through.
The garden was on the outer edge of the ship so that it could receive natural light from any nearby star. He expected it to be barren after years in storage, but the first thing he encountered was the smell of fresh tomatoes. Boges had planted several rows by the entrance, hanging on the wall in lighted hydroponic racks. It seemed even Boges was open to adopting Reason technology in the face of resource scarcity. Despite Boges’ best efforts, most of the old growth trees had died off. The immense room looked empty without them. Back when he was a child, you could walk the paths for an hour and not see a wall. Now the room was like an empty cavern.
He continued on along the path toward Lake Vivaan. The lake was a marvel of creativity and interspecies cooperation, and it relied solely on Bala design. While humans assumed that stoneship lakes contained microgravity drives in the waterworks beneath them, they were actually an ecosystem made up of three Bala species that worked together to keep the water stable in zero G.
First, the lake was lined with squabby sand, a fine substrate that radiated heat and ultraviolet light. When the pond functioned properly, it glowed with a purple-blue light emanating from the depths. Mixed into the water above the sand was a large quantity of fire algae from Kaila’s planet, Gymnoverium. They absorbed the sand’s heat and each individual microscopic alga generated a minuscule gravitational field. The fields were harmless by the handful, but deadly in large quantities. Many an unwary swimmer had drowned by jumping into a pond when the fire algae were in bloom.
The final layer was a school of vek, a palm-sized fish from the water-covered planet of Varuna. Vek were floating fish that jumped out of the water and hovered for a few minutes to catch small flying insects that hatched off the water’s surface. They swam near the top layer of stoneship ponds, their floating hormone counteracting the algae’s gravitational field so that the crew could swim without fear of being dragged to the bottom.
When the ecosystem worked, the water stayed put even when the gravity was off. Gary remembered playing a game as a child that involved pushing off the roof of the garden and hitting the water where you felt gravity’s tug. Then you swam up as fast as you could, trying to jump out of the water high enough to break free of the fire algae’s pull and float skyward again. His father had been terrible at the game, four hooves flying in every direction, scrambling across the ceiling. It was most undignified for a unicorn, but it made Gary laugh, so his father had done it again and again. He had many happy memories of this place.
Findae Cobalt had disappeared along with the rest of the living unicorns over sixty years ago. Gary had searched FTL ships for years, checking to see if his father had been held captive for his horn, but he had never found him or an explanation for his absence. Gary had long since resigned himself to the fact that the Reason might have killed Findae for no good reason at all.
He rounded a bend in the path and came upon Lake Vivaan. Ricky floated over the surface of the lake, using a net made of nylon stockings stretched around a wire hanger to scoop vek out of the water.
“Hey Gary,” she said brightly. “Come fishing.”
Ricky reached into her makeshift net and plucked out a pair of fish before they floated away. She tucked them into a resealable plastic bag filled with water.
“You can’t take those. The fish are critical to the lake. And they’re not yours to take,” said Gary.
“They’re not yours either, big guy. Everything in this garden is fair game until the captain tells me otherwise.”
A vek jumped out of the water to eat a mosquito and Ricky tried to dive for it. She landed on the surface of the water, which began to drag her down immediately. She pushed down on the surface, which only pulled more of her under the water as the gravity of the fire algae took hold of her.
“A little help?” she called.
Gary picked up a dead branch and held it out to Ricky. With his other hand, he hung onto a heavy stump on the shore. She grabbed the branch and pulled hard. His fingers slipped off the stump and he landed flat in the water. He kicked as hard as he could, but his legs went down as if tied to stone. Boges had surely done her best, but the pond biome was far out of balance. The algae had taken over. No matter how hard he swam, Gary began to sink.
“Help!” cried Ricky, just before her head sank below the surface. Her hands thrashed in a futile attempt to push down on the water and raise herself up. There was nothing to grab, no way to fight the pull. Gary could only think of one thing to do. He shouted as loud as he could.
“Boges!”
Even if she wasn’t in this room herself, one of her kin was always in the walls listening.
Gary sucked in a huge breath as his head went under. He dropped through the layer of vek. They brushed past him and tickled his face. He felt calm. The pond was quiet and soothing. A purple glow illuminated the water. Occasionally, an algae colony flared red with a burst of gravity. His healing blood would go to extraordinary lengths to keep him from drowning. It might take three times as long as a full human. He wasn’t sure if that was a positive or a negative aspect of the situation.
He saw Ricky nearby, struggling in the water. He reached for her and snagged one of the belt loops on her jumpsuit. He reeled her in closer as they both sank.
She didn’t notice him until he was right up against her. She tried to get leverage off his body, shoving him down deeper. He pushed her hands down and pulled her tight to him, pinning her arms to her sides so that she couldn’t make his situation worse. Her eyes went wide. She thought he was trying to kill her. She fought hard, kicking him in the legs, twisting and pushing to break free. Bubbles streamed from her mouth and nose.
Gary held her firmly until she gave up and stopped struggling. She looked up at the surface one more time, eyes wide with terror. Gary leaned close and put his mouth over hers. She pulled back, startled, until she felt the air bubbles. She moved in and allowed him to form a seal over her mouth, then breathed in as he blew. After a few seconds she pulled away. It wouldn’t save her life if they didn’t get above the water soon, but it might buy them a few more seconds.
They reached the bottom of the lake. Squabby sand crunched under Gary’s hooves. He waved to Ricky and pointed to the glowing sand. She watched as he bent his knees and pushed off like he had as a child. He made it most of the way up through the water. His fingers breached the surface before he sank back down again. Ricky passed him on the way down. She was also just short of getting a breath. The gravity was too strong for them to break the surface.
His empty lungs began to burn. Part of him longed to close his eyes and simply allow the algae to drag him down. Only it wasn’t the algae sinking him, it was his time in the Quag, his time locked on the Jaggery, the panicked look on Cheryl Ann’s face when she realized she was about to die. It was the same look that Ricky had now. She reached for him again, but he had no air left to give. He asked
for Unamip’s blessing for those who have little hope.
He wrapped an arm around Ricky’s waist and bent his knees again. He shoved off as hard as he could and they soared upward. This time, the gravity in the water had shifted. Liquid coalesced into boulder-sized spheres that floated away from them, up toward the roof still marked with scuffs from his father’s hooves.
Ricky emerged from a bubble of water and took a great gasping mouthful of air. She gagged and choked, hanging onto an outcropping of stone. Gary filled his throbbing lungs. They hung on to the ceiling, panting.
“Are you all right, Captain?” called Boges from the controls on the far side of the room.
“I believe so,” said Gary.
Ricky shook herself off between coughing breaths. Water beaded off her jumpsuit and spun out in every direction. A bunch of globules hit Gary.
“I’m fine, thanks for asking,” she called to the dwarf, who clearly did not care.
Boges soared up to the ceiling. “My most sincere apologies. I neglected to mention that the lake was dangerously out of balance and no one should attempt to swim.”
“We should not have been in there anyway, Boges,” said Gary, raising his eyebrow to Ricky.
“Don’t give me that look, Gary Cobalt. You’ve been dying to take a swim with me since the moment we met.” She leaned closer to Boges and whispered conspiratorially. “He even gave me a kiss.”
Boges’ mouth opened so wide that a globule of water floated inside. She sputtered and spit it out.
“I was giving you air,” said Gary, trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice.
“Mmm hmm,” she said. Gary gave up and pushed off toward the floor. He floated through a few globules of water on the way down and landed in the empty bottom of the lake. All of the squabby sand was gone.
“How did you jettison the water?” he called up to Boges.
“Electric pumps at the bottom of the lake. When you hit the emergency shutdown, they turn on and suck the sand into a holding tank beneath the lake. It cuts off the UV food source to the algae. Their microgravity shuts down and the water floats away. Unfortunately, the fish go too.” Vek gasped and twisted in the air around them.
“Electric pumps? On which Bala world do you find those?” He grinned at Boges, who blushed.
“Reason tech is good for solving some problems, you know.” She pushed off and catapulted herself back through the dwarf door. “I’ll have someone come collect the fish and reset the lake.”
Ricky floated down next to him. Her playful smile was gone.
“Hey. Thank you,” she said. “What you did… I won’t forget it.” She put out her hand and he shook it. His large palm nearly enveloped her slender hand.
“My apologies for misspeaking in the bar,” he said.
“Thanks. And I shouldn’t have embarrassed you up there about the kiss.” She pointed to the ceiling, where most of the water had spread out to form a shallow impromptu lake. It wouldn’t be easy to clean up.
“I may not enjoy that particular activity, but you should know that it delights me immensely to torment Boges,” said Gary.
“Then I guess I’m on the right ship, because I’m in the business of tormenting people.” She pulled her hair down and wrung it out. More water bubbles floated up into the garden. “Gary, I’m serious. Neither of us should get off on Jaisalmer. It is not a good place for people like you and me. At best, we’ll be locked up within hours of landing.”
“The Sisters have asked me to be there when the cargo opens.”
Ricky waved away the suggestion.
“You don’t have to do everything the Sisters say. They like to play that they know the future, but there are so many permutations that even they can’t account for all of the variables.”
“You were a Sister. I saw the uniform in your suitcase,” said Gary, knowing that a true Sister would deny it.
“I was asked to be, but I declined the invitation. I have no interest in living a nun’s life in a run-down castle on Varuna,” said Ricky. “Maybe when I’m older and have nothing better to do.”
“They would be lucky to have you.”
The side of her mouth went up in a smile and she looked genuinely pleased at the compliment.
“I think so too. I’m very good at getting into places where I don’t belong.”
“Then perhaps Jaisalmer is not as bad a prospect as you imagine,” he said.
She seemed to consider it.
“Maybe. But Jenny’s idea about Chhatrapati isn’t bad. I can get a lot of places from there.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he conceded. It would be easy enough to make the stop. Chhatrapati Shivaji was minutes away from Jaisalmer. “Please remember that some things on this ship can be dangerous.”
“You got that right, Gary.” Ricky floated off to tamper with more of the Jaggery’s systems and Gary went back toward his quarters. He was soaking wet, freezing cold, and there were vek caught in his trousers.
Hovering in the crew hallway, Gary took a moment before entering his old quarters to survey the scene. Boges had instructed the dwarves to clean the room, but even they weren’t able to get the smells of old blood and urine out of the air. The bars were gone, at least. That was a start. And his footlocker was still there, although Reason investigators had pried the lock open and haphazardly thrown his personal items back inside. He peeled off his wet clothes and pulled out a dry pair of trousers and a wool sweater, appropriate for chilly days in deep space. He took his hat off to dry. There was no need to hide his head up here.
At the bottom of the trunk he spotted a pair of gold earrings that had once belonged to his mother. They had been crafted into an intricate filigree that dangled low like a banquet hall chandelier. Seeing them was like a kick in the chest. He had been planning to give them to Cheryl Ann once they got away from Demoryx, but she hadn’t made it out of the system alive.
Six weeks before Cheryl Ann died, the Jaggery had become stuck between the two smallest planets orbiting the red giant Demoryx. Jenny was captain then, and Gary had been locked into a corner of his room that she’d welded into a makeshift cage. He’d assumed that Jenny had a thorough understanding of how trisicles and horn growth worked. By the time Cheryl Ann told him otherwise, it was already too late.
“Hey, bud,” Cheryl Ann had said, sitting on his bed outside of the bars like she did every afternoon. She looked too young to be the wife of an angry old man like Jim, but she was a skilled systems engineer whom Gary would have been proud to have on his crew. Even here on the Jaggery, which practically ran itself, she had taken the time to learn all the dwarves’ names and ask after their kin. In turn, they had shown her the void at the heart of the ship, something humans were rarely invited to see. “We’re a little concerned and maybe you can help us out.”
“What is it?” he asked. “Jim pummeling more dwarves or Jenny careening the ship into places where it shouldn’t be?”
“More of the latter, I suppose,” she said, pursing just one side of her mouth. “We ran out of trisicles.”
“Then we’re all going to die,” he said. It was a flippant comment said in jest, but given how close it came to the truth, he wished he’d never said it. Especially not to Cheryl Ann.
“Stop,” she said, waving off his pessimism. “We just have to find a cluster of trisicles or figure out a way to get back to a planet with some food.”
“Do you think trisicles just float around everywhere, waiting for people to pluck them out of the sky?”
“No, but they have to come from somewhere,” Cheryl Ann reasoned. He kicked the bars of his cage and she jumped. He was so bitter toward her in the beginning, taking delight in making her afraid. But she kept showing up every day, asking questions about his life and keeping him company anyway.
“You’re supposed to keep the breeding pair and eat only the offspring,” he said, with a cruel laugh.
“I don’t think Jenny knew that.”
“She was captain
of an FTL ship for years. How does she not know how to manage a trisicle inventory?” asked Gary.
“Because the Pandey didn’t have a unicorn on board. The Reason rationed out bits of horn to her. She’d never grown her own.”
He snorted, not bothering to hide the equine sound.
“So, any ideas?” she asked.
“If you have bones of any kind, or even chitinous insects, I can grow a minuscule amount of horn from those.”
“All righty. I’ll see what we can find. Anyway, I brought you something. Don’t tell Jenny or she’ll have my ass.”
She came up to the bars and held out a parcel wrapped in a cloth napkin. He took it and peeled away the fabric. Inside was a dosa wrapped around potatoes and cheese. After months of Reason rations, the smell was sublime. He sat against the back wall and picked off a piece of the pancake. It was crispy and light.
“I had Boges make it using your mother’s recipe. She said it was your favorite. I borrowed some of Jim’s cheese. It’s a little cold. Sorry. I couldn’t get here right away.”
He ate in silence while Cheryl Ann sat nearby and waited. When he was finished, he held out the napkin. She reached in to take it and he grabbed her hand. She pulled away, but he held her firmly. Her eyes went wide with terror when she realized her mistake.
“That was the kindest thing anyone has done for me in years,” he said, letting her go. She laughed with relief.
“Oh sure. Yeah. I mean, it’s ridiculous that Jen has you in here like this, but no one’s going to change her mind once she gets set on something. You know her.”
He didn’t answer and she left. A week after that, they ran out of cow bones. The shaving Jenny scraped out of his head that night was so thin that you could see light through it. It jumped them a quarter of the way to Flavos, the only planet in the system with animal life – and more bones. Going there on conventional power would take them eleven months. Jenny had stockpiled enough food for two.
Three weeks before Cheryl Ann died, she’d stopped bringing him food treats and instead tried to distract him with cups of watery chai. She sat outside of the bars and told him stories about her childhood on Earth and how she’d met Jenny in engineering school. Jim had been one of their instructors – a cocky man who didn’t flirt so much as demand attention. He and Cheryl Ann married after graduation and started an interplanetary shipping business. They’d invited Jenny to join them, but she had enlisted in the Reason Space Force instead.
